


"You wouldn't be my family, you'd be my lady"

by AryaGEN



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Love/Hate, Lust, Self-Discovery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 19:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1481554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AryaGEN/pseuds/AryaGEN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of the journey undertaken by Arya and the Hound as they cross Westeros inspired by the events of Game of Thrones Season 4 and my own imagination. Mild Arya/Gendry references at the beginning that give way to the main storyline featuring strong Arya/The Hound later. Warning, contains (eventual but graphic) smut and violence. Discretion advised.<br/>(First fic - finally finished)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wolf and the Hound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely follows Season 4 of Game of Thrones.
> 
> First chapters were updated daily (hence they're much shorter), currently updating weekly (now longer chapters)...

_You wouldn’t be my family, you’d be my lady._

 

It would be dawn soon; Arya didn’t have to open her eyes to know she did not have long before they had to move again. She was tired, aching and hungry, though she had never much cared for her appearance even she had to admit that if Sansa could see her now she’d probably faint. _Sansa._ Arya felt a stab of longing – the last time she’d seen Sansa she’d collapsed on the platform. Yoren may have blocked her eyes but she would never escape from that… that sound, and the moment that Sansa had stopped screaming shortly after. Before, she had always thought her sister weak but if she’d had to, to watch, well she didn’t know if she wouldn’t have fainted too. _No_ Arya thought, _I am stronger… I killed the stableboy, I survived Harrenhal, I murdered the Frey man and Polliver._

 

Her eyes stung against the cold early morning air: her dry, cracked lips parted as the memories stirred a wave of emotion – _Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne…_ she muttered her names into the darkness, the names of all the people she was going to kill. _The Hound…_ Arya’s voice faltered slightly, _the Hound_ she repeated with conviction. She had been travelling with him for weeks, ever since she left the Brotherhood – even now she could hear his rasps and snores disrupting their otherwise quiet surroundings. _He_ _killed_ _Mycah_ she said out loud in barely a whisper, then again with as much strength as her parched throat could muster. She gripped Needle, kept ever at her side since she had got it back; she knew she should walk over to him and stick him with the pointy end – that he’d wake up with just enough time to see her smile. She knew she should cross another name off her list, the Tickler, Polliver, and the Hound. She should walk over and strike the life from him before he could even grip for his sword – they were close enough to the Eyrie for her to make it there without him.

 

 _You’re afraid you won’t make it._ She heard his voice echo back from her memories, she had been staring at the Twins for Mother, for Robb…

 

She blearily opened her eyes and squinted across at the Hound. It was not dawn, she could only make out the faint outline of him but sure enough, there he was. These past few weeks he had been different, before he had been the King’s dog, loyal and obedient to a fault. He was a man without honour, and yet, he had come closer to getting her back to her family than any other: Yoren had tried but he was no longer here. Gendry had… _Gendry_.

 

_I can be your family_

_You wouldn’t be my family, you’d be my lady_

 

She would not think of Gendry. He had left HER, he abandoned her even before he was taken by the Red woman. The Hound was all she had. The wolf and the Hound, that was her pack now. While drunk, for they seldom spoke otherwise, the Hound had told her of Sansa, tortured by Joffrey in the capital and of the Battle of Blackwater where the flames had swallowed ships whole. She hated him, nothing could undo that, but he seemed changed somehow – he was his own master, he had cut his leash. Even if he intended to sell her to Aunt Lysa for his own profit, she was sure he would at least get her there, or die trying.

 

She closed her eyes, despite her body aching from riding and hunger – it had been a week since her last full stomach at the Inn at the Crossroads – she felt a brief moment of happiness. The cold and swirling winds reminded her of Winterfell, before Father had been killed, before Mother and Robb, before Jon had moved North and Sansa had been trapped in Kings Landing and Bran’s fall… they were all standing in the courtyard of Winterfell, Mother and Father on the terrace with Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrick, Robb, Jon and Bran practicing archery… She drifted off to sleep…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First fiction, will update according to where Season 4 of the show goes. Hope you like it, it will get smutty later into the story but for now I wanted to just test getting the tone right/writing style.


	2. The Golden Stag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains spoilers from Seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones.

Arya watched her prey, her great paws lightly padding across the soft, wet earth; she crept forward, keeping low, and cautiously moved out from the dense bushes into the glade. She eyed a golden stag, silhouetted by the light of an evening sun; proud and graceful. She admired its delicate movement and pulled herself slowly, but carefully, towards it. The slightest sound would give her away, she had to be silent, she had to hit it at the opportune moment – she was hungry, she couldn’t risk alerting it. She flexed her muscles, her claws dug deep into the earth and she bared her sharp teeth. She was ready to pounce…

 

The dear turned startled as three enormous black dogs entered the clearing from the other side, giving chase to the stag. It reared and bolted wildly before bounding towards Arya in a panic stricken madness, not knowing she was there. Arya sprung out and in one swift movement brought the stag crashing down, her teeth flashed and she spun in for the kill but something stopped her. _His eyes._ The stag stared at her with eyes of steely blue flame. Power and Fear. It was a gaze she knew from another life, majestic and strong yet fearful. _His eyes._

 

The dogs were closing in, snarling and snapping, she reared up to full height and growled with a force she didn’t know she could muster. It was a guttural and horrifying sound with a raw power that startled the dogs and drove them back a short distance, but they did not scarper, nor did they hold back for long. The three dogs circled her, wary not to get too close but cutting off an escape. Arya lashed out with a disgusting crunch as her teeth hit those of one of the dogs, she felt blood roll from her mouth and broke away before any of the others could close in. She may have had the advantage of size but against three…

 

She was interrupted by a hard bite to her back left leg, she let out a slight whimper before snapping back, this time catching one of them by the throat. As she let go she knew she’d punctured it deep, the dog collapsed and whined a pitiful wail, choking on its own clotted, black blood. The dog's fierce yellow eyes closed.

 

She wheeled on the other two and they backed away, this time further. She lashed forward, growling and barking, baring her bloodied teeth until they turned and fled. When she rounded on the downed stag, she was no longer the powerful wolf, nor was the helpless creature lying motionless on the floor. Her paws were her hands, her fur was gone and she was Arya, standing naked in the glen.

 

The orange glow of the evening had fallen beyond the horizon and a chill ran across her bare skin as she stood exposed in the clearing. In the place of the stag was the still body of a boy maybe no older than Robb, the body was too still. She felt her hands shaking as she walked towards him, a boy with black hair, a boy who’d never had a family, and now never would. With each step her feet got heavier, her whole body was trembling now and sickness rose from the bottom of her stomach. The boy was pale, motionless and dressed in nothing but a blacksmith’s apron. _His eyes,_ Arya thought, the dread welling up within her, _his eyes._ They were like glass – cold, blue and dead. _Gendry._

 

Arya bolted upright, hardly noticing the beads of sweat that rolled down from her forehead. Her heart was pounding and her empty stomach made her feel sick. She lay back down and stared up at the morning sky, playing back the images of her dream. He had left _HER,_ she told herself, but she couldn’t shake that look in his eyes, the fear in them when she had first brought down the stag, it was the same look he’d had at Harrenhal, the same look he’d had as he was dragged away by the Red woman. Arya’s stomach knotted at the thought of what could’ve happened to him, he was _different,_ to all the other men she’d known. He was _special._ He was _dead,_ most likely. After what happened to Mother, to Robb, to Father, to Bran, to Sansa, to Lommy, to Mycah, to Syrio, to Yoren… he was _dead._ Arya didn't have the luxury of hope, she would never see him again. She bit back tears, _Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne…_

 

“It’s time to move, wolf-girl,” The Hound said after what felt like an eternity. He had already saddled both their horses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know, the three black dogs are the sigil of House Clegane...


	3. Gendry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gendry POV, slightly harder to write not knowing where he is within the TV series, but a continuation from the scenes in Season 3x10. Hope you enjoy :) A slightly longer chapter this time (hopefully I'll write each one gradually longer.)

_Creak, splash, pull. Creak, splash, pull. Creak, splash, pull._

 

Gendry was hunched forward in the rowboat, his throat parched and stomach empty. His muscles burned with all the ferocity of the bright sun baring down on him. The sun now felt hotter than the furnace of any forge he’d ever worked at. The row from Dragonstone was long and arduous paced only by the same sounds, the same three motions: pulling the oars towards him  _creak,_  dropping them into the water,  _splash,_ then pulling them towards him. How was anyone supposed to do anything in this heat? And anyway, wasn’t winter supposed to be coming?  _ARYA._

 

Gendry flinched and in his hesitation dropped one of the oars, his hand slipped as he went to regrip it giving him several large splinters. “Fuck!” he roared, looking at the line of blood dripping from his hand, he pulled the oars into the boat for a moment so he could get some of the worst splinters out. His hand blurred in his eyes; the lack of water had made him delirious. When Ser Davos warned him not to drink the seawater he had scoffed,  _I know not to drink seawater,_ he had said. This was the third day of rowing, his fingers were calloused and bloodied – he had no real way of knowing whether he was going in the right direction. He’d kept the land to his left, sure, but he couldn’t see the Red Keep and even if he could he had no idea where he was supposed to pull into shore – even if he got there the city was surrounded by a labyrinth of bustling harbours and ports, which one would draw the least attention? It didn’t help that he had his back to the direction he needed to head, how did rowers get anywhere anyway when they could only see the wrong way?

 

He wasn’t going to last much longer out here,  _seven hells it’s hot_ , Gendry thought to himself, looking towards the shore trying to work out whereabouts he could pull in. The exercise proved pointless though as he was too far to make out details and what little he could see was clouded by the sweat pouring from his brow into his eyes. He wiped his face with one of his hands, which didn’t make a huge deal of difference and may possibly have made his eyes sting more. He needed to get off the water, he had little choice now – he needed to be strong enough when he arrived at Fleabottom to run, if he stayed much longer in the boat he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to stand. He’d be caught the moment he got to a dock.

 

He began rowing towards the coast, wincing as he placed his hands back on the oars and sighing at the monotony of sounds,  _creak, splash pull… creak, splash pull…_ He practically praised the gods when he heard the sounds of the city – sailors unloading cargo, merchants yelling and all the general hubbub of the suburbs. This was the closest thing to home he’d felt since…

_I can be your family_

 

 _NO! She was a highborn, she was the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark,_ he thought to himself,  _and I am the son of King Robert Baratheon_ his voice returned _._ He remembered hearing stories of King Robert’s, no… his father’s undying love for Lyanna Stark, their houses had always been close – they had forged anew the Seven Kingdoms. Stark and Baratheon were meant to be together, but he was not a Baratheon; he was just the bastard son of a dead King.  _She’s probably dead now anyway…_ He felt sick for thinking that but he remembered the Brotherhood saying they would take her to Riverrun to her family, if they did then she’d have been at the Twins when…  _ARYA!_

 

When he had met her, first met her, she had seemed little more than a child; frail, weak and broken, even with her ridiculous little sword. After Harrenhal, after hearing her whisper her list, after confronting Lord Tywin on a daily basis and after she had arranged their escape… she was no longer a child. By the time they reached the Brotherhood she had grown sure of herself, her scrawny frame had been replaced by subtle, but unmistakable, curves and she had become beautiful, in her way. She carried the weight of a lifetime of sorrow on her young shoulders; she was fierce, wild, loyal and a complete pain in his arse but, seven hells, did he  _love_  her? He wondered if this was what King Robert had seen in Lyanna.

 

It was why he wanted to stay with the Brotherhood; he was afraid he would fall in love with her. He was afraid he would do something stupid. Thinking now, perhaps it was just the dehydration, but he was right to be afraid, he did fall in love with her… but leaving her was the most stupid thing he had ever done. Even before the Red woman he had left her, she had offered to be his family…  _family…_ and he had panicked. All those nights sat watching her in Harrenhal, ready to jump to her side, willing to walk with her right out the front gates, all those nights since, regretting his decision.  _If she’s died and you could’ve stopped it…_ Gendry paused, trying to recompose himself – he tried to get rid of that thought, but  _even if she is alive, you will never see her again._

 

“Where in the hell do you think you’re headed boy?” He heard a gruff, but not malicious, voice calling across the water.

 

“I’m sorry?” Gendry replied with all the strength he could muster, shaken from his thoughts and locating the source of the voice as a rather fat man standing on the prow of a small merchant vessel – a ship still large another to sink Gendry’s rowboat with just its waves.

 

“This harbour is for cargo only, you want to follow the coast for another quarter league for docking a boat that size,” the fat man called out “you’ll be capsized before you get anywhere close to moor if you keep going this way… haven’t you ever been to King’s Landing?”

 

“Not for a long time,” Gendry replied, honestly, it had been two years since they had first set out with Yoren and then Harrenhal, the Brotherhood, the Red woman… “Thank you, ser.”

 

The fat man gestured widely with his arms to indicate he approved of the added title before his ship passed by him, the waves rocking Gendry's small boat a little too much.  Gendry set his mind to finding the right port to pull into. It was only now that he thought  _what in seven hells do I do when I reach the shore?_


	4. The Vale of Arryn

The Vale of Arryn was a brutal, unforgiving landscape of sheered rock and treacherous peaks punctuated only by marshes and streams. There journey had got tougher since they left the rolling fields of the Riverlands behind and as they were travelling across country, their encounter with the Red band revealed that the roads were unsafe, their progress was slow. They were approaching from the south trying to cross the mountains that shielded the lands of House Arryn from the rest of Westeros, it was a grueling trek - and the poor weather conditions confirmed what Arya knew in her heart to be true, that  _Winter is Coming._

 

Arya had been told that in the winter the ranges were often unpassable and the Eyrie became unreachable. Though she had been born in the long summer she did not doubt this to be true, the weather of the waning summer made travelling hard enough. They had only been riding for several hours before the footing became too unsteady for the horses to navigate alone and they had been forced to dismount and take them by hand. The Hound led the way, followed by the oversized black steed he rode, then Arya, pulling her white mare more softly as they descended into yet another ravine and through the swamp at the bottom.

 

Arya was drenched, soaked to the bone. It was difficult to work out where was safe to walk with the rain lashing down on them so ferociously. Yet even with the rain and chilling winds, Arya was still somewhat glad to be on foot again, at least for now. She had spent so long arguing with the Hound that she should have her own horse that when she had taken one from the Inn on the Crossroads she had forgotten the pain and agony that comes from riding – what had felt so good and freeing at first had left her thighs bruised and sore, possibly blistered. She wouldn’t let the Hound know that, of course, as far as she was concerned she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, though from the sound she had made when she got back on her horse that morning, he probably could’ve guessed.

 

 _Everything looks the same,_ Arya thought, frustrated that they had made so little progress the last hour and trying to pull one foot out of the mud without sinking the other – it would be so much easier if her thighs didn’t burn every time they brushed against each other… She stopped for a moment, looking ahead – the Hound was already quite a way ahead. She sighed, regained her thoughts and grabbed at the ends of a burnt piece of bread from her pocket. Except a few crusts she’d saved she had next to no food left, and the Hound didn’t look like he had much either, they wouldn’t be able to keep this up - “Fuck!” Arya cursed as her other foot fell through the layer of mud into the silt below, the water wrapping around it with an icy vice like grip. She dropped the reigns of her horse which whinnied nervously and backed away.

 

“Having trouble wolf-girl?” The Hound called over from some distance, she detected a flicker of amusement in his voice, perhaps even some genuine concern.

 

 _How in seven hells does he find this so easy?_ Arya thought to herself, trying, but failing miserably, to pull herself out of the bog. The murky sludge had claimed both her feet for its own and showed no signs of letting her have them back. The Hound walked towards her, seeming to barely notice the marsh despite his huge frame and heavy armour. “I don’t need your help!” Arya called out to him, in spite of clearly needing his help. She was angry with herself trying to summon the grace and balance Syrio had tried to teach her in King's Landing,  _I never did catch a bloody cat,_ she thought to herself, still trying to shift her weight to get out of the mud. _  
_

“Is that right?” The Hound mocked, placing his hands under her arms and lifting her out of the mud in one smooth motion. He held her arm as she regained her balance with a tenderness she didn’t expect, when she had sure footing he let go and Arya felt a fleeting moment of sadness she didn’t expect or understand.

 

“I didn’t need your help” Arya mumbled as he let go of her arm and turned around, though looking at her now unsubmerged feet she realised she had been truly stuck.

 

“The trick, little wolf, is to avoid the bright patches of moss – the brighter it is, the wetter it is, the weaker the ground is, the wetter you end up…” the Hound called out, after a moment, already striding away from her. When he reached his horse he took a large swig from a bottle in the saddlebag while he watched Arya catching up with him, this time dancing between clumps of drier ground. He offered her the bottle but she refused.

 

“I don’t like the taste,” Arya said, matter of factly, _YOREN._

“It’ll keep you warm,” the Hound said softly with a sincerity that surprised her, “we’ll have to find the road again, we can’t stay out in this piss forever, and we don’t have much food.”

 

“I thought you said the roads weren’t safe,” Arya questioned, caving in and taking a swig of the wine – even if it burnt her throat, the Hound hadn’t lied, it did warm her up, “the hill tribesmen…”

 

“Are the least of our worries, we won’t make it another few days out here without shelter,” the Hound said, working out which direction to head, “we’ll find the High road and travel North, to the Bloody Gate, I doubt we’ve walked far enough to miss it.”

 

Arya could only nod, she felt too weak to do anything else. The Hound was right – they needed supplies and they were too exposed here. She noted that it was only after she had slipped the Hound had changed his mind, and It was only after they had changed direction, heading almost exactly back the way they’d come, that she realised why. The Hound could’ve kept going as far as he wanted to, he could've made it all the way to the Wall if he had wanted to, but he wasn't doing this for him (well, he was still trying to sell me to my Aunt, but he wasn't changing the route for him),  _he was doing this for me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter, but since I'm updating daily I hope you don't mind too much! This chapter is inspired by the time I spent trekking in Wales, UK. I have finally got a vague idea of where the Arya/Hound story will go over the next few chapters - even if I'm not sure what to do with Gendry (hopefully he'll be in Season 4 episode 3!) What I do know is that pretty soon there will be a more substantial divergence from the books, oh and a more complicated chapter from the Hound's POV will come soon :)


	5. The Lion and the Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Includes major spoilers from Game of Thrones Season 4 Episode 2...

“You shouldn’t have come back here Gendry,” Tobho Mott told him nervously, “I sent you away for a reason boy… were you seen?”

 

Gendry shook his head, _this was a mistake,_ he hadn’t known where to go once he had docked and without coin this had seemed like his only option. He knew he couldn’t stay here, that if anyone was still looking for him they’d check here first, but a question had been burning in his mind the last few weeks since… since he met the Red woman, _I have to ask him._

 

“Did you know?” Gendry said coldly, trying to cover the desperation in his voice, “did you know who I was? Who my father was?”

 

“No, not for a long time, not until after I sent you away,” his former master told him, bolting the door of his shop and closing the wooden shutters by the windows, “men came looking for you.”

 

“Why did you send me away if you didn’t know?” Gendry asked, afraid to hear the answer.

 

“Two Hands, boy, two Hands of the King search for you specifically, some bastard boy from Fleabottom, and then both end up dead… I knew, whoever you were, someone would come after you sometime,” He looked at Gendry like a father reunited with a son, “it was for you boy” he said, an uncharacteristic affection in the word _boy,_ not the derision Gendry had come to expect.

 

“Why didn’t you say that to me? You made me feel like I was nothing, no one! You just gave me away like I was less important to you than the armour you sell,” Gendry said, voice raised and hands shaking. His whole life he’d been told he wasn’t good enough: he was just the bastard of a whore; his father was probably some drunk old fool. Had Gendry not been so angry he might have laughed – King Robert may have been ruler of the seven kingdoms, but he was a drunk old fool nonetheless.

 

“You are _no one_!” Tobho Mott returned with all the fire Gendry remembered from his years as an apprentice, “you think because a dead King squirted you in your mother’s belly while he went drinking and whoring you’re now a somebody, you are _no one,_ Gendry, and if you want to keep your head you’d best stay that way: the gods know people would use you if they could.”

 

 _They already have,_ he thought; remembering his night with the Red woman _._ A stunned and heavy silence filled the space between them; Gendry was angry, he knew his old master had tried to protect him but he had spent his life being passed from one man to another like a possession: from him to Yoren to Tywin to the Brotherhood to Stannis. Only two people had made him feel like he belonged, like he was a real person, Ser Davos and… _Arya… I was a fool to dare to hope that we might… She’s a highborn; you’re a no one, a no one who just happens to be the bastard of a dead King._ “I shouldn’t have come,” Gendry said quietly, his voice ice.

“I’m sorry, lad, I… I really am,” Tobho said, “the gods only know what you’ve been through to end back here, where you started. Have you got somewhere to stay? Some coin?” Gendry shook his head, “I’ll help you this once boy, I don’t want to know where you go, but you can never come back here, do you understand?” Gendry nodded his head, they embraced – his anger replaced with a sense of yearning: for so long this had been home, everything had been so simple. They had a drink before leaving, ate a few crusts of bread, spoke for hours into the night but soon enough Gendry was on his own again.

 

\----- 

 

King’s Landing was awash with panic and chaos following King Joffrey’s death at his own wedding. There prevailed an atmosphere of tension and fear across Fleabottom: the gold cloaks had been making a series of random arrests trying to demonstrate the power of the crown and stamp down on the mass thieving, rioting and widespread general unrest (even some jubilation) caused by the King’s death. Rumour was rampant as to who had killed the King: some said his uncle, the Imp, whilst others said the Martells of Dorne in revenge for the rape and murder of the Targaryen children by the Lannisters in King Robert’s rebellion. Far and away the most inventive and interesting stories, though, claimed the Tyrells were responsible after the still suspicious circumstances of King Renly’s death.

 

When he had first arrived, barring the visit to his old master, Gendry had made himself scarce amongst the backstreets of Flea Bottom; he used the coin Tobho Mott had given him to rent a small room in a concealed alleyway with little more than a small cot and a wash bucket, replaced each day. It was enough: it was quiet and away from prying eyes. For the first few days he had been terrified of being identified straight away but Ser Davos had been right; they couldn’t tell his face from the crowds in Fleabottom and the men of the City Watch were so preoccupied putting out fires and stopping riots they didn’t care about a dead King’s orders – Tommen was King now and, whilst he had not rescinded the order to hunt down King Robert’s bastards, he showed no signs of enforcing it with the same ruthless determination as his predecessor.

 

Once Tobho Mott’s money had run out finding work had been surprisingly easy; they were always looking for strong men to unload cargo from the harbour. It was hard labour and he was less suited to it than to being a smith but in the interests of remaining anonymous he kept his head down, followed orders and didn’t ask questions. He had given his name as Edric, to anyone that asked and, despite being a regular patron at a number of inns and taverns, spent much of his time in obscurity.

 

A girl had been watching him from the bar with bright eyes and blonde hair; under different circumstances he might have found her attractive, wanted her even, but nowadays all he did was drink alone and listen for gossip both hoping to hear something about Arya to know she was alive, but afraid of what her discovery would mean. If he didn’t hear anything, _she could still be alive._ The girl walked towards him, her dress clinging tightly to her thin frame, outlining her hips and breasts. One flick of his eyes warned her away and she sighed, turning to another man at the bar. The only girl he’d ever cared for was gone, _or worse,_ he had no interest in the company of whores. He was just finishing the last drops of his ale when he heard a bard perform an updated version of the banned song “ _King Robert and the boar”_

_Our King stumbled, hit the ground,_

_He spluttered as he spoke,_

_The vultures circled, all around – as_

_Our King began to choke._

_His body trembled, he gasped for breath,_

_He was caught in his last throws,_

_The lion boy King met his death,_

_Strangled by a rose._

There was a roar of laughter and applause as the bard finished the song; Gendry had heard it several times now, slightly different with each rendition. He looked at the bottom of his empty mug wistfully, smiling a little as a drunk sailor called out “long live our brave virgin King” and another called out “You’d think the son of King Robert could handle his drink! I guess he is all Lannister!” The bard was given plenty of coin and encouraged to sing another, which he was of course, happy to do. Gendry took little notice though as he walked out onto the street, he barely registered the changes made to “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” to _honour_ King Joffrey’s death…

 

_A pie, a pie, a pretty pie,_

_The sweetest pie you’ll ever try,_

_But “why, oh why?” The King cried “why?_

_Why did I try the Ty-rell pie?”_

_The Ty, the Ty, the Ty-rell pie,_

_Was sweeter yet than you or I,_

_The Ty, the Ty, the Ty-rell pie_

_Had called its second King to die._

 

From where he stood he had a vantage point over Blackwater Bay, busy with the comings and goings of various ships. For a moment, he tried to imagine the wildfire, remembering sailing past the wreckage of Stannis Baratheon’s fleet. Still within earshot of the “celebration” of King Joffrey taking place in the tavern he wondered if Arya, _if she’s alive,_ had heard about Joffrey’s death, whether she’d be happy to have one less on her list or be angry she couldn’t cross it off herself. Joffrey’s public death on the day of his marriage might make her smile after the tragedy at Edmure Tully’s wedding, of the Red wedding…

 

_Please…_

It was not a thought, nor just hope; it was a prayer, Gendry realised. He had thought and hoped about Arya a lot since returning to King’s Landing, he had even visited the place where they had first met – where she had pointed that ridiculous sword of hers at Hot Pie. He hadn’t heard anything about her being at the Twins – but then, he hadn’t heard anything at all. He was no longer aware of the loud banging of mugs, the stomping of feet and clapping of the men inside the tavern or indeed the noises and bustle of the street around him. He did not know to which gods he was praying, or even if there were gods out there to listen, but he called out across the Blackwater nonetheless.

 

_Please… Let her be alive…_

 

He felt a rising chill roll towards him from across bay, a chill that cut through him and seemed to freeze his pounding heart. His prayer, a breath and promise to every and any god out there; to the old Northern gods, _you are her gods – watch over her,_ to the god of death she had spoken about, _I would give my life for hers…_ to the seven new gods and even the Lord of Light he prayed…

 

_Let her be alive…_

 

The cold winds continued to rise in reply – his heart struck deep with a piercing, icy blade, _was that his answer?_ He hoped to himself, _or is it just that Winter is Coming…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much longer Easter chapter for everybody (including two songs that I was relatively impressed with), hopefully the next episode of Thrones will give me a better idea of where the series is taking the show but I have a storyline in mind I could follow (I am likely to outpace the show at this rate!)
> 
> It's odd, I had just wanted to write smut but am enjoying the narrative a lot more than I had expected...
> 
> Also, Gendry's name as Edric is indeed a reference, to all you bookreaders, to the fact that the TV series has merged the storyline of King Robert's bastard Edric Storm with that of Gendry... seemed like a harmless thing to throw in!
> 
> Happy Easter! Hope you enjoyed...


	6. A Flash of Swords

“You are the worst shit in the seven kingdoms!” Arya screamed, a mixture of blind fury and disgust contorting the fine features of her face.

“There’s plenty worse than me, I just understand the way things are. How many Starks are they going to behead before you figure it out?” The Hound replied with a certainty in his voice that shook Arya to her core.

 

_He was there,_ Arya remembered: she’d spent the last two years thinking about that day outside the Sept of Baelor; her father on his knees, _Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound… He was there when father died; he was there when father was captured – he probably helped kill the Stark guards._

“One day-” Arya began coldly, her eyes shooting daggers.

“Let me guess, you’re going to put a sword through my eye and out the back of my skull,” the Hound laughed back, derisively, “with your _Needle_?”

Arya winced slightly, her pride wounded; remembering how the Hound had first laughed when she’d said she named her sword. “I could-” she began, puffing her chest out and unsheathing Needle, pointing it towards him with a forceful, but trembling, hand. She couldn’t help but remember her eagerness to prove her ability with a sword to Thoros, and the embarrassing outcome.

“You think because you’ve killed three men you know how to fight?” The Hound replied, a severity in his voice that wasn’t there before. He stepped forward, his frame dwarfing hers and spoke words that cut her deeper than any weapon ever could, “you think you’re tough, but you’re just… small… the Frey man was unarmed, and your Polliver too – do you like stabbing men with their backs turned? Perhaps I should turn around? Surprise has killed three men, not you… and not one of them could fight, I mean _really_ fight. How many men do you think I’ve killed, wolf-girl?”

 

Arya understood the threat clear as day but remained unmoved, her hand steadied now and her mind focussed. In one smooth motion the Hound unsheathed his sword and knocked Needle to the side but this time Arya held onto it. She sidestepped and lunged forward at the Hound’s chainmail – with surprising grace he deflected the blow. She had stepped too far forward, though, and left her leg open, a fact the Hound exploited with a practiced ease bringing the flat side of his sword down on her thigh. She collapsed unbalanced and the flash of swords was over; the Hound looked over her tiny frame before walking back to the horses as though nothing had happened. She was frustrated and angry – he was the only person who had seen her as something other than a breakable lady and he had still defeated her so easily, dismissing her attack as though it were an inconvenience.

 

_I should have known better,_ Arya thought, livid with herself for believing otherwise, _I knew better – I couldn’t beat Thoros, I can’t beat him._ She wondered how quickly it would have taken Jaquen or Syrio to kill him, she needed to be stronger. She cursed at herself, standing up and brushing the mud off her breeches. _How could I have thought he’d change? He killed Mycah, he killed my father’s men and he’s only stuck with me until he can sell me on. You can’t teach a dog new tricks, and that’s all he is, a dog without honour; a beast. A monster._

 

It had been two weeks since that tender moment on the marshes and the changes she’d noticed with the Hound, that she’d convinced herself she’d seen, were gone. He could’ve done real damage, Arya noted, rubbing her bruised thigh and watching him stride away from her. Biting her lip against the pain she drew herself to full height and fought back the tears already brimming in her eyes: she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Everything she thought he could be, that she wanted him to be, was a lie... after everything he'd done to keep her safe...

 

Shortly after turning back from the marshland Arya had collapsed from exhaustion – she didn’t remember a great deal but she had been carried by the Hound for at least some of the journey, her horse trailing behind his without a rider. The cold and the wetness had sapped her strength; it had twisted around and through her like ivy strangling a tree. She was a Northerner, true, and Winterfell had been colder than this but warm waters ran through the walls of her home, sheltering the inhabitants from the weather outside. Here, she had been exposed repeatedly for weeks on end and with little rest and food, it had not taken long for a deep sickness to take hold.

 

When they had made it to the East road finding shelter hadn’t been nearly as difficult as they’d thought – the war had ravaged the area; there were empty farms scattered all across the countryside and with no men left to collect the last harvests of the summer, food hadn’t been scarce either. The Hound had even lit a fire to keep her warm and cook soup on after she’d dropped into a feverous state of delirium and confusion. There was significant fire damage to where they were staying and the Hound had given her the only structurally sound room in the cottage, sheltering her from the elements with its four walls and almost complete roof. He had bundled her in furs and even laid his cloak on top as well, keeping watch outside her door. There had been a softness to him, Arya had thought, a protective side of him – when he had first told her of how he had protected Sansa from the rapers and tried to help her escape King’s Landing she hadn’t believed him, but now, wrapped up in her makeshift bedding, Arya couldn’t help but wonder if he had been telling the truth.

 

They’d spent almost a week in the same cottage and, while they could only risk lighting a small fire for warmth or cooking, it had taken that time for Arya to recover her strength – just a little rest and food from the unreaped fields had done a great deal to bring back her spirit. When the Hound finally agreed to let her back on her own horse he had insisted she led the way so he could keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t fall. Arya had been surprised and encouraged by his protectiveness and, despite her indignation at being babied, she knew that she wouldn’t have survived without him. For the first time since her father, she had felt safe.

 

Arya had even began drinking with him in the evenings, a slight smile playing across her lips as she remembered Yoren saying “you don’t drink it for the taste.” She had needed it, at first, to warm her up and get her through the cold chills of the fever but after that had broken she just enjoyed the kick from it. It was the only time the Hound would truly talk to her, the only time she could find out about King’s Landing and the war – she had learnt a lot serving Tywin in Harrenhal, but it was still nice to find someone else to talk with. She hadn’t had company to confide in since _Gendry._ They had even joked about the Hound’s brother, the Mountain. Arya had been reminded of Tywin’s words to her before he left “he’s poor company when he’s sober, but he’s better at his job.” She had smiled, thinking that his advice applied to both Clegane brothers: in the days, their conversation was far less engaging, they discussed routes but, except for one mention of the free cities, they kept largely to themselves. Arya would never admit it, but she had enjoyed his company: he wasn’t King Joffrey’s dog anymore; he was free, he was strong, he was different.

 

All of this was before they had run into a man and his daughter (or rather, the man and his daughter ran into them.) The man had given them sanctuary, warm food and even offered to pay the Hound silver to stay on as a guardian. She had woken to find that the Hound had stolen the silver anyway even after they had been taken in and shared bread and salt. _Walder Frey shared bread and salt with Robb and mother, too_ , Arya had thought, her rage all the more bitter after what the locals were dubbing the Red Wedding.

 

“Why?” Arya said softly, breaking out of her own thoughts.

“Why what?” The Hound replied, clearly still irritated with her from earlier.

“Why did you go through all that effort to save me?” Arya asked, remembering that she had believed he was doing it for her.

“You’re no good to me dead, your aunt Lysa won’t pay as much…” the Hound sneered back at her.

“Is that the only reason?” Arya asked, bitterly – not really sure what she was asking and surprised at herself for feeling as hurt as she did; _I should have expected this._

The Hound paused for a moment, thinking, before answering flatly and somehow unconvincingly, “aye… the only one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delayed update, unfortunately I have received rather terrible medical news so while I will continue to write it won't be as regularly - I'm just not well enough to at the moment. I hope you enjoyed this chapter though, I'm waiting to see what next week's Thrones will be like as it's got some Arya/the Hound and will hopefully give a better idea of where their story is going.


	7. Stark Pride

They had not spoken since the fight that morning, riding separately and not even stopping for a midday meal; the Hound rode ahead on his great black horse Stranger, Arya following him on her white mount. The Hound suspected that she would’ve liked nothing more than to ride in front of him, to show him that he hadn’t broken and tamed her, but he knew the deep bruising on her thigh meant she had to ride slowly and could just hear her wincing at the jolts of pain shot up her leg triggered by each of the horse’s steps. He pretended not to notice her discomfort.

 

 _Seven hells,_ the Hound thought to himself after taking a look back at Arya, _the Starks and their fucking pride;_ the girl was obviously in pain, he had hit her too hard, but she wore that steely mask he’d seen on Sansa every time they’d spoken in King’s Landing. Her grey eyes burning with wildfire, Arya shot him a look that pierced him deeper than either daggers or her Needle ever could. _They’re more alike than they think,_ he laughed, remembering that same anger in Sansa’s eyes when Joffrey, _the little cunt,_ had shown her father’s head to her. _Perhaps I should have just let her push him off that ledge,_ he mused, wondering what the boys screams would have sounded like and twitching his lips into a slight smile at the sickening crunch that would surely have befallen him once he hit the ground.

 

He would never tell them but in his own way he admired the Starks girls, despite their age and their inexperience in the way of the world they both held a hidden reserve of power and strength; they were every bit as cold and tough as that grey waste they hailed from. With Sansa he had been surprised, thinking she’d take from her mother as they looked so alike but with Arya, the lone wolf, it had been readily apparent. Even with her infuriating ignorance and while being pale and thin from her trials and a lack of food, Arya was growing into the image of her aunt Lyanna; the lady for whom seven kingdoms went to war. He had always thought Robert Baratheon little more than the drunken fool that he was but riding here, in the presence of the young wild and untameable Arya; he could almost understand the man’s reasons. _The Stark bitch is enough to drive anyone mad._

The hours rolled by at a torturous pace broken only by the intermittent drizzling of rain. He gritted his teeth as he rode, the cold and damp weather always made the scars on his face ache. The lighter patch of cloud that he assumed hid the sun began to drop towards the horizon before falling just below the rocky mountain ranges of the Vale. He looked back again at Arya who showed no interest in stopping, or in fact in anything at all – she was just staring forward past him, w _hy are all the Starks as cold as fucking ice?_ He realised that she wouldn’t stop until he did, her pride wouldn’t let her. She would prove that she could last as long as he could, maybe even longer.

 

When they did eventually stop for the night she slid off the side of her mare and landed awkwardly on one leg, her knee buckling at the pain from the pressure on her bruised thigh. She grunted as she landed face first on the ground, _something’s wrong,_ she tried to pull herself up but her arms were shaking; he would almost have laughed had he not noticed a dark red stain against the white skin of her horse. _Stubborn bitch!_ He rushed over to her, kneeling down and rolling her over until she faced upwards – her face was horror, a thin film of sweat covered her grimy skin and her grey eyes were cold and unfocussed, he looked down at her legs and saw one of them darkened with blood.

 

 _Seven fucking hells,_ he cursed to himself as he realised the blood was coming from where he’d hit her with the flat side of his sword earlier. As he drew his knife to cut through her breeches and inspect the wound one of her hands flew forward and caught his wrist, for such a slight girl her grip held the force of someone twice her size and with more strength by half. Her hold faltered and then dropped altogether as she passed out leaving the Hound able to slice through the fabric covering her upper leg. The creamy skin underneath was turned black with crusted and congealed blood; as he peeled the cloth of her breeches back the soaked leather made a series of uncomfortable squelching and cracking noises.

 

The wound was not deep, it was not even that long – but she hadn’t worn armour, he had swung too hard and even the flat side of a sword could draw blood with enough force. Though the cut was far from life threatening she’d bled too much to be able to stand one her own two feet tonight and it would still need to be washed and bound for her to use tomorrow. He had to be precise as he would need to reopen the wound to clean it; taking the flat side of his knife he pressed the side against her thigh, she flinched a little from the feel of the cold metal on her exposed skin more than the pain. He ran the edge along the length of the cut scraping off all of the congealed blood and dirt and, sure enough, fresh blood sprung up from underneath. He took out his wine skin, swigged from it, before pouring what was left onto the open cut; she gave a slight yelp but did not object to the treatment. He tore a section of his cloak off to serve as the bandage, wrapping it tightly around her leg before trying to unbuckle her belt, once again her hand flew to stop his and she only let go, reluctantly, once he assured her it was for the binding.

 

With the wound treated and dressed he picked her up and sat her against a rock before fetching water from a nearby stream. She was already asleep by the time he got back and he realised just how little like a child she looked – he had first seen her back in Winterfell on King Robert’s visit to make Lord Stark the Hand of the King. There she had been only a child, adventurous and free spirited but the Arya that lie propped against a rock in front of him had changed. At some point in the years since Winterfell her body had begun to fill out, the soft outline of her breasts stretching out from underneath that boy’s tunic she wore and her hips too were slightly too wide for her breeches. Even the roundish, childish features of her face had become sharper and more refined; though he suspected that was more a result of malnutrition.

 

He woke her to make sure she ate and drank, even though he could only offer her stale bread and stew. When she blearily opened her eyes he saw the same fire and hatred surge forward from behind them he was used to, a reassuring sign, and thankfully she wasn’t too proud to accept food and water from him. She did, however, look furiously at him with sheer disgust. He sighed to himself, this was a reaction he was used to after a lifetime baring his scars and his own reputation – it was a reaction he had seen in the girl’s sister Sansa dozens of times in King’s Landing; but somehow seeing how much Arya despised him cut him deep. When the Hound had first met Sansa she was afraid of him, it had taken him rescuing her from rapers to earn even a slight amount of trust and even then she had recoiled from him when he tried to kiss her on the eve of the Battle of Blackwater, but Arya hadn’t been afraid of him, she had openly mocked him – threatened him even.

 

“You’re so dangerous aren’t you, saying scary things to little girls, killing little boys and old people,” she had said, “I know a killer, a real killer, you’d be like a kitten to him, he’d kill you with his little finger.”

 

She’d tried to kill him with a rock, threatened to stick a sword through his eye, made fun of his fear of fire and even tried to stab him that morning – the Hound had killed many people for much less, could he really keep telling himself the only reason he was keeping her with him was to sell her? _The only girl in the seven kingdoms who isn’t bothered by my scars, and she still fucking hates me,_ he thought bitterly, staring at her in between a mouthful of his rather plain rabbit stew. He became even more infuriated because when they had fought together; against either the Freys or the Red Band at the Inn on the Crossroads, they had a certain electricity between them – it was the only times they had been truly on the same page and it had felt like, if only for a moment, she had stopped hating him – even appreciated him being there. _Why did this even matter to him? Seven hells she’s just a child, she means nothing to me,_ he told himself, but he only had to look over at her to know that was no longer true.

 

He was broken from his string of thoughts by some mumbling, he’d heard it before when she was feverous but had never been able to pick out more than a couple of names. He definitely heard Joffrey and Cersei but couldn’t take anything else out except perhaps the Mountain… _What in the fuck is she saying his name for?_ This wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned him, and she seemed to hate his brother perhaps even more than himself, but he’d never bothered asking her how they’d met. He knew Arya had been there for the Tourney of the Hand where his brother had cut the head off his own horse after losing to the Knight of the Flowers, but the way she had mentioned him before suggested she had better reason to hate him than that. Thinking about it, he hadn’t even asked her how she got out of King’s Landing let alone what had happened to her before he had run into her with the Brotherhood. _At what point did I start caring about the Stark bitch?_

 

He knew in his mind they couldn’t be too far from the Bloody Gate, the entry to the Eyrie, but he hadn’t considered what he would say when he got there – would they just shoot him on sight? At the back of his head he ran through other possibilities and he remembered how much Arya’s grey eyes had lit up when he mentioned getting a boat to one of the Free Cities, he wondered if that murderer she had mentioned was one of the friends she said she had in Bravos. Placing his head against the soft grass he looked skyward, he would think on this in the morning – if the Stark girl didn’t try and kill him again. He smirked before drifting off to sleep, but only after allowing himself one last glance over at the sleeping Arya.

 

The next day was surprisingly uneventful, the miserable steely Arya had returned and, despite her wounded leg and obvious tiredness, she would accept no help from the Hound – pulling herself up on her horse with just the strength of her arms. He was relieved that she had her usual energy back, even if, rather frustratingly, it came with her disagreeable demeanour. As they continued heading towards the Bloody Gate he was silently aware that there would only be one more opportunity to change direction; that the road would divide in two revealing a path to the town of Wickenden. He didn’t know much of the ruling house there, House Waxley, but the silver he had taken from that old man and his daughter would be enough to buy passage for two across the Narrow Sea. He nearly laughed in spite of himself when he wondered if Arya would have been more agreeable to the theft had he revealed he intended to use it for them both to leave Westeros.

 

Come the evening he had all but decided they would go to Wickenden, he hadn’t told Arya yet but he was sure she’d agree; _between that and staying here with her mad Aunt Lysa, who wouldn’t choose Esos!_ But it was only after they had settled down after yet another unadventurous dinner that he realised the flaw in his plan…

 

“Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, the Red Woman, Beric Dondarion, Thoros of Myr, The Mountain” Arya recited into the dark blue sky clearly, and irritatingly loudly, even if he was interested that he could finally hear all the names on her bloody list.

 

“Will you shut up?” he said nonchalantly, aware that they would need sleep if they were to change direction – the Hills Tribesmen operated unrestricted on the road from the Bloody Gate to Wickenden, they would need to travel it fast.

 

“I can’t sleep until I say the names,” Arya replied indignantly, rolling over to face his direction; her face glowing in the dying light of the fire, _gods she looked good._

 

“The names of every fucking person in Westeros?” He teased, enjoying the way she twitched her lip upwards in annoyance.

 

“Only the ones I’m going to kill,” she replied, sounding both calm and confident.

 

“Hate’s as good a thing as any to keep a person going, better than most. If we come across my brother, maybe we can both cross a name off our list,” he said back, surprisingly sincerely, wondering again what his brother had done to make her list.

 

“If he were here right now what would you do?” She asked, curiously, propping herself up on one elbow to get a better view of him.

 

He wanted to say that he’d drive his sword right through his brother’s black heart but for some reason he couldn’t, he paused before saying dryly, “I’d tell him to shut the fuck up so I can get some sleep… go on, get it over with, your list of doomed men.”

 

“I’m almost done, only one name left” She said, in a voice that filled him with dread.

 

“Go on,” he replied hoping that his dread sounded impatient rather than concerned.

 

She rolled over to lie away from him; he found himself eyeing the round curves of her arse under her breeches and had to stop himself undressing her in his mind. When she did speak she spoke clearly and powerfully, “the Hound.”

 

_Fuck._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a more challenging chapter to write from the Hound's perspective but I think it came off reasonably well - also the longest chapter I've ever written at 2500 words (aren't I kind?!) Hope you guys enjoy it, tell me what you think - I have absolutely no idea where this story is going (though I have drafted two endings in the distant future) as I'm still vaguely following the show. Given that I'm also working on another story as well I suspect this will be one that updates weekly (but with longer chapters.) Also waiting for Gendry to show up in the series so I know their plans (even if I have my own for him!) Feel free to comment etc. and have a great week!


	8. The Fury & Kindness of a Hound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Hound POV, my longest chapter by far with smut in the second half. Severe Canon Divergence. Enjoy :)

He was in a grim mood when he awoke; his scars stung in the cold morning air and his eyes struggled adjusting to the dim light of the grey sky. He gave out a breathy sigh at what promised to be a miserable day ahead; if not for the weather, then the company. _Bitch._ He was one of her doomed men, her list of people she was going to kill… _or try to kill..._ She’d promised as much, even tried to – he would’ve cut any man in half for much less than what she’d done to him. He remembered her as a child, standing in line with the rest of the Starks as King Robert entered Winterfell; even then he’d seen a fire in her. She’d disarmed Joffrey on the King’s Road and openly defied the King and Queen – but she was just a girl then, she had grown up in safety and security surrounded by family. _The gods only know what she’s been through now,_ he thought to himself, it had been years since Winterfell, most of that time spent on her own – and she must have spent at least some of it with his wretched brother, _Gregor_ , for his name to be on her fucking list.

 

His heart pounded hard through his chest as he thought about his brother and despite the coldness of the Vale and the piercing early morning wind he began sweating. For a brief moment he returned to the castle he grew up in as a boy, his brother towering over him and bearing down with all his weight, pushing his face towards the open fire. He heard the cracking and burning of the flames now hot against the side of his skull as they licked him and tickled him, melting his flesh _like a nice juicy mutton chop._ The fire roared and sizzled; embers flew around his stinging eyes, no matter how hard he struggled he was pinned by the sheer power of Gregor; bearing down with him with all the weight and force of a mountain. The flames surrounded him, trapping him in a molten cage that soared around him, rising higher and higher before transforming into a surging green explosion of such size and force that it could devour entire ships and their crews whole and raise an entire fleet into nothing. Tendrils of fire and smoke spiralled upwards into the night like the last wisps of a thousand finished candles, all reflected in the dark and murky depths of the _Blackwater._

 

He closed his eyes, cursing himself for letting himself slide back into his own memories so easily and waited for the screaming and wailing of Stannis’ army to fade until it was just a faint sound that fell away to the east wind. Recomposed he looked again up to the grey sky, this time focussed and determined before finally allowing himself to look over to Arya. _Where in seven hells has she gone?_ He cursed, pulling himself up and looking to see if she was nearby – rushing to get a good view of the valley they were in. His head spun slightly as he stood up too quickly, and he ended up using a nearby rock to support himself, for a moment he allowed himself to look at where they were – had it not been so miserably grey it could’ve been beautiful, _not unlike the Stark bitch herself,_ he thought with a smirk as he finally caught sight of her.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he spent staring at her as she twirled her silly little sword, switching hands and fighting imaginary enemies. Her footwork was impressive given the no doubt nasty bruising he’d inflicted on her thigh. He watched as she twisted this way and that, ducking and striking at her would be attackers, he wondered for a moment if she was practicing for him. Of course, all this twirling would serve her no use in a real fight: a single swing from a long sword would probably break her _Needle_ in two and even if it didn’t the force of a solid hit would be enough to knock her flat on her arse. And yet even still, she was impressive, mesmerising – though probably not for the reasons she thought she was. He walked forward slowly, watching her feet move lightly and quickly and was admittedly somewhat surprised at the grace which she held herself with – _it might not help her win a fight, but it could come in handy elsewhere,_ he imagined with his lips twitched up into a sly smile. Each thrust from her rippled through her body: her breasts, full and enticing, were swaying visibly under the pulled taught stitching on her leather jerkin and he noticed her breeches seemed too small and impossibly stretched across the prominant curves of her hips. The Hound wondered how he hadn’t noticed the woman Arya had turned into for so long, she was like a young Lyanna Stark, a true Northern beauty.

 

His admiration swiftly reverted back to irritation with her at the knowledge that not only could he never have her, but that she hated him: _she tried to kill me at the first opportunity she had and several times thereafter. I’m one of her fucking doomed men, the sooner I sell her to her bitch Aunt Lysa the better._ He closed the gap between them in a few large strides, clearly catching her off guard.

 

“The hell are you doing?” He blurted out, half surprised at the anger in his own voice.

 

“Practicing,” she replied as she rounded on him – that look of hatred in her eyes he had seen in so many others; somehow seeing that look worn by her pierced him deeper than she probably ever could with a blade. He berated himself, _why should I care what the Stark bitch thinks?_ His teeth were gritted together in anger and frustration as she pointed her silly little sword towards him thinking her flowery twirling and one handed posture would threaten him – had he not already proven how easily he could win against her?

“What? Ways to die!” He called back to her, enjoying the look of indignation that spread across her face – he would pay her back in kind for last night, he had been prepared to leave Westeros with her, and she’d told him she wanted nothing more than to kill him. _Gods!_ Somehow she had a way of getting under his skin few others possessed.

 

“No one’s going to kill me,” she asserted with a surprising confidence given that he himself had had the opportunity to only the day before.

 

“They will if you nunce around like that. That’s no way to fight!” He teased, half smiling at the predictable flash of anger that swept across her face. He saw wildfire burning in her grey eyes, boring into him.

 

“It’s not fighting - it’s water dancing,” she said with the same confidence as before.

 

“Dancing?! Maybe you ought to put on a dress,” he laughed, thinking to himself how unlike Sansa she was and knowing full well that Arya Stark would sooner die than be caught in a dress. He immediately wished he hadn’t suggested it though as he felt a slight stirring in his cock at the thought of Arya Stark dressed like one of those Southern Ladies. _Seven hells she’s a fucking child, you are old enough to be her father!_ He told himself, aware that it was impossible to ignore her womanly frame. He looked across to her to see his words had the effect he assumed they would: the fine features of her face were hidden by a dark scowl, her _dancing,_ became faster and more furious. Her elegant strokes were becoming shorter and more forceful.

 

“Who taught you that shite?” He called, taunting her further – using her to vent his frustration.

 

“The greatest swordsman who ever lived… Syrio Forel, the first swordsman to the Sea Lord of Bravos,” she said, performing a one handed cartwheel and bringing her sword about to face him. This time he felt real anger arise within him, remembering how just the day before she had tried to stab him. _I should’ve bought my fucking sword._

 

“Bravos! Greasy haired little bastard was he? They all are,” he spoke with a sneer.

 

“What do you know about anything?!” She yelled back with that look of insult and disgust that he’d seen on her after he took that farmer’s silver. _Gods, how could someone so small be such a pain in my arse!_

 

“I bet his hair is greasier than Joffrey’s cunt.” The Hound shouted back, noting she’d stopped practicing to engage in this war of words.

 

“It was not!” She asserted.

 

“Was? Dead?” He asked, only half curiously.

 

“Yes.”

 

“How?”

 

“He was killed.”

 

“Who by?”

 

“Meryn Trant – that’s why Ser Meryn’s on the-” She tried to explain.

 

This time any anger he was feeling melted into laughter – Meryn Trant could probably have been defeated by just about anybody, even Grand Maester Pycelle would probably have a good chance! “Meryn Trant? The greatest swordsman who ever lived was killed by Meryn fucking Trant?”

 

“He was outnumbered!” She yelled, outraged and insulted that he was laughing at the memory of her Bravosi swordsman.

 

“Any boy whore with a sword could beat three Meryn Trants!” He guffawed derisively, looking down at the slight figure of the raging girl in front of him with her stupid fucking Needle, _even she probably could!_

 

“He didn’t have a sword, or armour, just a stick!”

 

That was too much. “The greatest swordsman who ever lived didn’t have a sword!” He roared with a surprisingly high giggle, barely able to contain his amusement and wondering what the Bravosi could have done to convince her he was the best swordsman in the land without armour or a sword. “Alright you have a sword, let’s see what he taught you. Go on, do it for your Bravosi friend – dead like all the rest of your friends,” he added as an afterthought.

 

She spun the sword in her left hand with a practiced ease before turning and facing away from him. When her blow struck it carried a surprising amount force – more than enough to sink the sword straight through him to the pommel had he not been wearing his armour. Even as he was watching her blade bending against one of the leather strips on his chest piece his reactions took over and he struck her to the ground with a firm hit to her face. He loomed over her prone form, lying on the ground looking up at him, blood coming from her lip and a red mark developing across her cheek, he cursed her for what she’d made him do. He took her sword in his arm, pointed it at her throat not unlike how he’d seen her hold it against that cunt Polliver, and roared in a blind fury.

 

“Your friend’s dead, Meryn Trant’s not… because Trant had armour and a big fucking sword!”

 

 _Fuck the gods,_ he thought to himself as he looked down at her quivering frame. He had seen that face, that look before in the eyes of her sister. Sansa had worn it when Joffrey had Ser Meryn strike her, the mark his fist had made on Sansa was in the roughly the same place as the one he had now made on Arya. _Am I no better than Meryn fucking Trant?_ He reflected coldly, remembering the wound he’d inflicted on her thigh. _I wanted her to feel it; I enjoyed putting the little bitch in her place,_ he realised and immediately handed her back her sword and stormed off. _Perhaps I deserve to be on that fucking list after all._

_\-----_

It had been hours, the sun had long since been in the middle of the sky and was now drifting lazily towards the mountain ranges to the west and yet they had not left. The Hound had needed air, he had walked and walked to try and clear his thoughts, to figure out what he should do and after what felt like forever he stopped to look around, only then realising he had at some point doubled back and walked to the horses. He had started saddling his but he had yet to buckle the straps; he had just been standing there locked in his own mind. He looked across to see Arya sitting against a nearby rock eating stale bread, sulking and looking over the valley wrapped up in her own worries and concerns. She had drunk nearly an entire skin of his wine – he was half surprised she’d waited for him.

 

He didn’t know how long she’d been there but it had clearly been a while, he wasn’t exactly sure how long he’d been thinking for but she had been here, waiting; she was perfectly still, apart from a slight sway from the alcohol, she had clearly been preparing for him to make his mind up on what they were doing next. When he saw the dark purple bruise running across her cheek his hands slipped and his horse, Stranger, reared up in surprise at how tight the Hound had pulled the buckle. The noise seemed to break Arya out of whatever she was thinking and when she looked over to him, half her face dark and bruised and the other half pale but all of it covered in a layer of grime and mud his heart sank. _I did this._ He had seen and done some horrific things in his life, most much worse than what he saw now but somehow this was the worst – he had tried to help Sansa, in the capital, he had cursed Joffrey and Meryn Trant for how they treated her and yet he was no better, _perhaps I really am just mad dog._ The sight tore at him, his throat felt dry and parched. He looked away bitterly, feeling sick until he finally spoke, unable to even look at her.

 

“The silver… it was for passage to Essos, perhaps your beloved Bravos,” he said in a broken voice he wasn’t sure she would even hear. He reluctantly turned back to look at her; if she had heard him she betrayed no emotions on her face, it was stone and her guards were up. She wasn’t even looking at him. He couldn’t help remember the hint of excitement in her the last time he had mentioned Essos, but here, there was nothing, her eyes seemed sunken somehow as though she barely registered her surroundings, if not for her breathing causing her chest to rise and fall he could’ve sworn she was a statue. “There’s a chance, before we reach the Bloody Gate, to turn south for Wickenden, ships leave there headed to Essos,” he continued only half-heartedly before his voice faltered and trailed off.

 

After what felt like hours she eventually turned her eyes to him, the grey pits in her skull empty of the fire he had seen dancing there earlier, she looked like she would be sick. He studied her carefully from head to toe before noticing to his shame her thigh was bleeding again, she must have ripped it open while practicing; she followed his gaze towards her own bleeding leg but seemed not to be bothered by it. It was only when he took a step towards her that she moved – her hand shot towards Needle, tucked into her belt like normal and the empty greyness of her eyes roared with life. _She’s afraid; the one girl in the seven kingdoms he’d met who hadn’t been afraid of him, was now afraid,_ he realised, his heart sinking.

“You need to dress that,” he said, indicating to her leg. She did not move, keeping her eyes fixed on him, one hand on the grip of Needle and the other on the side of the rock she was perched on, presumably to allow her to stand up quickly if she needed to. There was a tense silence between them before she took her hand off of Needle, indicating he could come slightly closer and rested it on her stomach, it was only then that the Hound saw how tired she looked. He closed the gap between them cautiously, with slow steps, and knelt down on one knee just in front of her so that, with her perched up on a rock, his head was just below hers. As he got close she turned away; looking back out across the valley. She flinched as he gently checked the piece of cloth binding he wound across her thigh – it had not torn, if anything the wound looked better.

 

“It’s moon blood,” Arya said coldly, looking intently across at the landscape in front of her and giving no emotion to her words. She looked lifeless, hollow.

 

 _Seven fucking hells,_ the Hound thought while remembering how Sansa had reacted when she’d first had hers and her desperation to hide it. His hands shook as he realised he was still holding either side of the tear in her breeches. The wild Arya Stark had retreated into herself, leaving little left but a shell, she was hiding – projecting her mind across the horizon beyond all the mountains of the Vale and over the clouds, it only then occurred to him she was looking North, probably trying to imagine her home Winterfell, before it had been reduced to rubble. More than anything else, more than her anger and her hate, it was her silence that haunted him. She wore the same clouded and subdued expression now she’d worn on the marshes with the fever and on that day at the Twins. It made him feel ill. He knew she was in shock: he’d seen it a thousand times before – normally with soldiers after battles, she would be unable to move on her own, and she couldn’t stay like this. _I won’t let her._

 

He walked over to the horses and pulled out some fresh linen before returning to her and scooping her into his arms, one hand underneath her knees and the other supporting her back. She did not resist, she just continued to stare forwards. He held her close to his chest; the same way he had on the marshes and when he had rescued her from the chaos at the twins. Her hair fell over his shoulder and she pressed her unbruised cheek into his armour. She seemed heavier now, in the months they’d been on the road, fuller somehow. With the sun midway through setting he walked back down the slope towards the river, where she had been practicing earlier, and sat her down against the water’s edge before stepping into the river himself and running water through the cloths and filling up one of their empty skins.

 

It occurred to him he had no idea exactly what he was going to do, she needed to wash but she couldn’t exactly do so in her current state. He knelt in front of her with one of the cloths and looked into her face, seeing the dried blood from her lip had reached her chin and been smeared across her cheeks. He used the cloth to gently dab it, the same way he had with Sansa, gradually cleaning her crusted lips and cheek. He held the back of her head with one hand for support while using the other to wash her; she barely flinched even as he wiped the bruises. He rinsed the cloth out with the water he’d gathered after every few strokes. He had no way of knowing it but with the sun setting over his shoulder, his scars were hidden by shadows – for the briefest of moments, as he gently washed away the layers of grime from her forehead and her neck – he could almost have been the most handsome man in Westeros.

 

Once he had finished cleaning her face he inspected the bruise and the cut he’d left, still cursing himself for acting so rashly – even if she had tried to stab him. It would heal, the cut wasn’t deep and the bruise would fade in time, until then it would serve as a reminder of what he was, _and this can remind me what I am,_ he thought, bringing the cloth across her face once more. Before he could stop himself he found that he’d mumbled out tenderly “sorry,” – it was a word he was hardly familiar with, it felt strange on his tongue and judging by the flicker of surprise he detected on her face, it seemed to be a word she wasn’t expecting either. He wondered when the last time anyone had apologised to her was all the while standing back up and taking the cloth to the river to wash thoroughly until the muddied red faded and its original beige colour returned.

 

 _The gods…_ he breathed to himself when he turned around. The Stark girl had removed her breeches and her shift and stood in front of him: naked from the waist down. _She is afraid, but not of me_ the Hound realised as it dawned on him that in the three years since she’d fled King’s Landing she’d probably had to disguise as a boy – _nobody told her what to expect. She must be terrified._ Her legs seemed longer and hips wider than he’d ever noticed – he cursed himself again for the wound to her left leg – was there any part of this beautiful woman he hadn’t spoiled? He found his eyes tracing up her milky white thighs to her pelvis, covered by a set of short and fluffy auburn curls poking out from behind her hands; brought shyly in front of her. He felt the blood rushing towards his cock, _she was definitely not a child anymore…_ She walked towards him and took several tentative steps into the river, flinching slightly at how cold the water was against her skin. Truly, the hound had never seen a vision of such beauty – now that the mud was gone from her face and her hair pulled back he wondered how anybody could have mistaken her for a boy. In that moment, with the setting sun bathing her in an orange glow and that pale terror he’d seen in her up on the hill disappeared, she was divine.

 

She stood in front of him and looked up – her eyes meeting his. There was terror in her face; she didn’t know what was happening to her. For a moment neither moved, despite the calmness and grace with which she appeared to be standing her breathing was short and sharp. She closed her eyes, scrunching up her face and she waited. The Hound swallowed involuntarily, his throat now dry and sore. He kneeled down in the water, watching it rushing past her shins and past the armour on his knee. His head was at the height of her chest, _by the Gods,_ his hands shook and he gritted his teeth. He submerged the cloth in the water, watching as his hand disappeared under its surface before bringing it up and pressing it down gently on the inside of her left leg, just below her knee. She shook slightly, nervous but she did not step backwards. He gradually brought the cloth upwards, carefully wiping away weeks of mud and the dried blood on the inside of her thighs. He rinsed it in the water again – noticing that her breathing grew shorter still. When he reapplied the cloth she did not flinch this time, letting him bring it further up towards her sex. After several more swipes the edge of the cloth just caught the side of her lips and she let out a sigh – she seemed frustrated when the Hound took the cloth away to rinse it and let out an irritated grumble as he started cleaning her right leg, placing the cloth at just under her other knee and working his way up again from the other side.

 

It seemed to take him forever to wipe her clean but finally he brought the cloth to the gap between her legs, applying pressure to her sex. She shuddered slightly, letting out a breathy sigh and stepped backwards from him, a look of concern rushing over her flushed face. He rinsed the cloth and looked up at her, fighting back the urge to push her against the river bank and fuck her there and then. He practically praised the gods when she decided to step forward again. He put his hand between her legs again, pushing open her lips to clear as much of the blood as possible – he was enthralled with the way she squirmed as he did and the whimper she made. He traced the cloth upwards to her clit and brushed passed it – she gasped, her legs buckled immediately and she landed in the water with a splash that soaked the front of his armour. Her face was now below his, she still had her eyes shut but he savoured the exquisite sight before him: her cheeks shone red with an anguished and confused expression, he doubted anyone had touched her there before – probably not even herself.

 

Now, both kneeling together in the water, she parted her legs for his hand, propping herself up on her knees, and waited for him to continue. He brought the cloth up once again and traced the outline of her cunt through its thin fabric; he felt her warmth soaking into the rag and enjoyed listening to the sighs and moans she made under her breath; he nearly came there and then when he saw her bite down on her lip to try and supress the noises she was making. He dropped it back towards the water to rinse once again but her hand caught his and brought it back up to her sex. That was all he needed, he moved his fingers faster through the cloth, spreading her lips and stimulating her clit at the same time and it was only moments before she tensed up, froze, screwed her face up and then let out a loud “fuck” as she climaxed. Her cheeks were crimson, her breathing erratic and he felt warm juices drip over his hand. She slumped forward into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder.

 

And yet, she had kept her eyes shut through everything, partly from the wine he suspected but it did not change the fact she had not looked on him once. He remembered how he’d asked Sansa, her sister, for a kiss at the Blackwater and she’d shrunk away in horror – Arya had more reason to hate him than most… _She’ll hate me more than ever for this._ Even then, as he held the little wolf against him in the dying light of the sun, her words, whispered into his ear, the first and only words she’d said since she revealed she had had her first moon blood, haunted him.

 

“Don’t you leave me again _Gendry_ … I can be your family,” she said softly and sleepily, he could smell the wine on her breath.

 

He scooped her up and carried her back to the camp, ignoring his own needs, and laid her down into her furs before returning to the river to wash out her breeches and shift before the following morning’s travelling. By the time he returned to their camp to lay down, pulling his own furs around him, he arrived just in time to hear her mumbling her fucking list…

 

“Cersei… Joffrey… Ilyn Payne… Tywin Lannister… The Red woman… Beric Dondarrion… Thoros of Myr… The Mountain…”

 

She yawned loudly and drifted off to sleep before she could finish, _there’s just one name left,_ the Hound reminded himself, replaying the confusing events of the day back in his head… _The seven hells save me from her wrath in the morning…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that, at 4,600 words that is the longest chapter so far (and as a result, the trickiest to write!) I did promise smut at the beginning so I hope you enjoyed it and you won't kill me too much, the next chapter will of course deal with the aftermath - and it will be an Arya POV. Kind of sitting on my hands with Gendry's storyline until the show makes its mind up on what's going to happen...
> 
> Major thanks to Tiberiusirius for inspiring me to write :) Her "Don't Be Stupid" is one of the best stories I've ever read on here, do check it out for some awesome smut/story between Arya and Gendry (you won't be disappointed!)


	9. Her Pack

Her head was spinning, her breath was short, her eyesight blurry and her complete lack of balance meant she could barely stand. She felt ill, her hands shook visibly against the sharp rocks she propped herself against. The strong wind struck her, throwing her unkempt and matted hair behind her ears. The coldness of the high mountain air nestled deep inside her chest, lashing at her face and biting deep into her very bones. She was covered in a film of sweat from the run – when she had awoken, when she had remembered, she had run so far so fast. She stopped only when her legs could push no further and when her lungs felt like they would explode if she didn’t.

 

Leaning forwards she hunched and doubled up waiting to see if she’d be sick. _He touched me,_ she thought to herself in disgust recalling the hazy events of the day before, _he touched me and I let him._ Her heart was hammering through her chest; each pounding beat felt so loud it blocked out all the other sounds around her. She felt her stomach twisting and lurching as the ground span around her. She swallowed back the acidic bile slowly creeping up her now burning throat and forced her bleary eyes open, only now looking at where she was. In front of her, the grass and rocks came in and out of focus, forcing her to screw her eyes shut again and take a moment before trying again. In the darkness she cursed at the thought of the Hound, _the fucking Hound,_ with his fingers between her legs. _And worse fucking still, I enjoyed it. What does that make me?_

She could not deny that she had enjoyed it, after the shock of discovering her moon blood she had felt herself overcome by a wave of panic and fear. She’d wanted to walk to the river and wash herself and clean her clothes but something had stopped her, had seized control of her and rooted her to the rock she was perched on as though she were part of it. When the Hound came storming back from wherever he’d ran off to she’d expected further derision and mocking comments; for him to goad her about her fighting style or poke fun at Syrio Forel. About the last thing she’d expected was for him to take her to the river and do what she could not: to wash her and her clothes. In that moment she saw straight past the tough act he put on as his shield and into the part of him that could still care and feel, buried underneath layers of anger, pain and hatred. She had seen this side to him before, on the marshes and in the cottage where he had nursed her back to health – at the time he had said it was so she’d fetch a higher price, that he couldn’t sell her if she was half-dead, but she remembered thinking even then that his voice had faltered, and he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her.

 

Despite everything, despite the fact that she had tried to kill him more than once, the Hound had still looked after her, _had made me feel safe._ It was a terrifying thought, she realised, trying to remember the last time she had felt safe – she had felt safe in Winterfell, but it had long since been laid to waste now, she had felt safe with her father, with Syrio, with Yoren, with _Gendry,_ but they were all gone now – all dead or as good as it. But the Hound, the Hound was there, with her, _now…_ he wasn’t gone yet, he was as close to a pack as she had. “ _The Wolf and the Hound_ ” she spoke out loud; whispered through her dry, cracked, chapped lips. The thought had her almost break into a smile but she was forced to stop upon feeling the tight skin around her mouth tear a little as it stretched in the harsh mountain air of the Vale, allowing a few drops of blood through.

 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of boots scraping against rock. Before she knew quite what was happening, an instinctive rage swept through her body. Her fingers flew to the pommel of Needle and in a flash of steel she rounded on the Hound, already knowing that in her state, with his armour on, she would be bested. She turned to look him full on but as the weight of things past crossed her mind she wondered why she had even bothered to draw her sword, _we are a pack now._ She realised too late that the man standing towards her was not the Hound, nor was he on his own.

 

Standing not less than five and ten paces away were several large men wrapped in goats furs untidily piled over roughly joined armour. She quickly judged it was likely they had made the armour themselves: where there was iron plating it was rusted and roughly hewn, and the stitching that bound it to the leathers underneath was messier than her own handiwork. She almost laughed in spite of herself at the recollection of all that time spent in Winterfell with her Septa trying to teach her how to sew as neatly as Sansa, _seven fucking hells, here I am confronted by potential enemies and all I can think about is needlework!_ She thought to herself, frustrated that she was letting herself get distracted. She cleared her mind – she would need to concentrate on her own needlework – before going back to studying the men in front of her. She could not help but hear the words of Syrio echoing from her past, _if you are with your trouble when fighting happens, more trouble for you…_

“Not today,” she muttered under her breath, her eyes darting from figure to figure – four of them, armed with swords or axes and a fifth man hanging back with bow, an arrow notched but not drawn. None of the men held their weapons with any conviction – she doubted they perceived her as a threat. She gave out a small sigh of relief at this and when she noted that none of them wore mail shirts underneath their leathers; there didn’t seem to be anything except the actual metal plate would stop Needle. Only the man at the front wore a large amount of iron, his seemed better forged than the others too, the rest only had bits and pieces covered. _I can be fast,_ she heard her own voice echoing from her memories as she tightened her grip on Needle and assumed the Bravosi posture, it would be tough to find an opening to the closest man. She inwardly wished she hadn’t run so far from the Hound as she felt her legs trembling from the strain she had put them through.

 

“And what do we have here?” The man with the best armour, presumably the leader of the group, boomed out before turning to his men and adding in mocking tones “a girl, dressed as a boy!” He leaned in menacingly towards her but she held her ground with Needle pointed upwards, ready for a quick jab. “Fancy yourself a swordsman do you, little girl?” He teased flashing a toothless grin and taking a step forwards.

 

She didn’t move, scanning his armour for weak points, his attire was unlike that of the surrounding men: the breastplate he wore was larger – though far too small for a man his size – and dented and bore the faded image of three candles, white with red flames. She suspected that he must have stolen the armour; not only because it had a sigil but also because it just didn’t fit him: he must have been a fair bit larger than its original occupant as the fastenings around the edges of the front and back plates had been lashed with additional straps to accommodate the bulging fat that pushed out between them. Altogether it left about a three inch gap, _a narrow target,_ on either side of his chest. Looking down towards the front of his legs she noted that they were well covered in plate at the front but had very little to guard the backs of his thighs. There were similar gaps under the armpits and along the underside of the upper arms; whomever the previous occupant was they probably would have worn chainmail to protect these gaps, she was fortunate this man did not (most likely because he was fatter than his predecessor) or else she’d have nowhere to aim.

 

“My, you’re a pretty one – we don’t get many pretty ones out here, do we boys?” He called out to his men who jeered and gestured towards her with their weapons, “what are you doing all alone up in our territory?” He licked his lips through his missing teeth and took another step forward. His primary weapon was a large two handed axe, the blade ran orange-brown with rust but even as blunt as it was she knew it would have little trouble cutting through the leather of her jerkin.

 

“I’m not alone,” she said, with as much force as she could muster, feeling sweat drip down the hilt of Needle from her tight grip.

 

“Is that so?” The leader asked before swinging around to face away from her and calling out to the landscape, “and where are your… _brave…_ companions? Eh?” He burst into a wicked laugh and took another step towards her, this time lowering his voice into little more than a growl “no I rather think we are alone little girl.”

 

“You’re wrong,” she said matter of factly as he took another pace towards her, he was rapidly closing the gap. He was close enough for her to see the details in his face; his hair was a mixture of fiery oranges and dull greys and was thinning at the top, his eyes were set deep into his skull and his cheeks were gaunt and lined. A scraggly beard of browns and whites barely covered his chin and neck.

 

He looked at her from top to bottom, pausing and resting his gaze momentarily on the swell of her breasts and curves of her hips; when he spoke his words were guttural and breathless, heavy with lust, “have you ever been fucked before little girl? Don’t suppose you have, it’s not much fun the first time, not much fun the first few times – not for you anyway – but you never know, you might grow to like it. You might even end up begging us for it… we’ll make a whore out of you yet.”

 

“I won’t beg,” she shot back coldly, her grey eyes burning bright as wildfire as she concentrated on the gaps of bulging exposed flesh between the plates of his armour. She would only get one opportunity if he struck to land a blow, _I can be fast._

 

He started walking towards her, his voice low, breathless and hoarse, until he was only a few paces from the tip of Needle “oh you’ll beg… sure, you’ll kick and scream and struggle at first but it won’t do you no good. Sooner or later the fight will drain right out of you; we’ve had plenty stronger than you. Sooner or later you just… give up. Mayhaps you won’t beg for sex like a whore, but you will beg – they always do – when the time comes, you’ll beg us to just let you die.” After he finished he took a step backwards and spoke louder for his men to hear, “first we’ll have to get rid of your sword though!”

 

His strike, while powerful, was slow, predictable and overconfident. He put far too much force into the swing, most likely a result of the weapon being too large for him. She stepped backwards and dipped Needle so it pointed to the floor, dodging the graceless attack with ease. The man stumbled slightly having expected to hit his target and gave her the opportunity she needed to step forward and deliver a swift uppercut to the underside of his now exposed right arm. She watched his face twist in pain and confusion as Needle effortlessly slipped under his armour and pierced the thin leathers that guarded his tricep. He let out a surprised squeal. She only held her blade in him for a moment before pulling back to a safer distance and admiring her handiwork.

 

He had dropped his axe instinctively and was grasping onto his right arm with his left; thick dark liquid had begun oozing from the wound the moment she’d withdrawn Needle and now trickled through his fingers. This time with the advantage she stepped forwards once again, lunging much lower and bringing her sword inwards between the man’s chest and back plates, landing a second successful strike on his left flank, this one deeper than before. The effect was instantaneous; he collapsed to his knees and crumpled pitifully into a moaning heap. Black blood streamed in thick torrents from his side, rolling over his thighs and into the grass. He gasped and writhed at her feet, thrashing about like a fish out of water, unable to plug either the puncture in his side or arm.

 

She did not have long to enjoy her victory, the loud twang of a bowstring being released reminded her that she was still in imminent peril. The archer had loosed an arrow at her, narrowly missing and rattling off a nearby rock. The three remaining tribesmen had weapons drawn, but none seemed eager to attack – presumably all in shock at the ease with which she had just dispatched their leader. They were lighter armed and armoured than the first man she had faced, carrying one handed axes and short swords. The man now closest to her, thin and scrawny, also carried a broad wooden shield – not strong enough to protect against a broadsword but it would easily hold back her Needle. In his other hand, a one handed axe which he swung with a practiced skill, he would not underestimate her like her first opponent.

 

The other two were wider men, closer in stature to the man now bleeding out in front of her, one was armed with two one handed axes and the other with a sword. She felt sweat drip down her forehead as she realised that she’d never trained against an axe before, only ever against a sword, and if they were smart they’d just wait for the archer to wound her before moving in. Fortunately, it seemed, they were not that smart. In the heat of the moment the shieldsman was first to attack, closing the distance between him and her in a matter of moments. She sidestepped his first swing, a powerful vertical strike which would have hit her shoulder had she not moved. He was fast; much faster than the man on the ground, aided by his lighter armour and freer movement. She practically had to leap out of the way of his second swipe, pivoting on her back foot to stop her from tumbling. With his third attack, a wide diagonal cut, she sought to strike at his then exposed thigh but he lowered his shield and the dull thud confirmed what she’d suspected, Needle was no match for it.

 

She gave ground rapidly as he swung at her again and again, relentlessly trying to land a hit on her. He showed no sign of tiring despite the speed and ferocity of his attack. In an effort to draw the confrontation to a quick close she sidestepped and countered with a higher strike against his shoulder but it again glanced off the side of his shield, almost throwing her off balance. His following strike clipped her cheek, drawing blood. The man took a step backwards, seemingly to catch his breath or just admire the fact he’d landed his first hit; she took the momentary respite as an opportunity to study her opponent. His face was covered by a thick bushy black beard, beads of sweat dripped from his scarred forehead and tangled hair was braided upwards into an old rusty helm. His fighting form was superb, well balanced and quick on his feet, his shield was broad enough to cover his entire flank and the constant barrage of attacks from his other hand meant she couldn’t get close enough to strike that side. The only gap in his offensive she could see was that in a vertical cut he would leave his wrist open only slightly to a quick jab, without armour he would surely drop his axe.

 

She groaned as she saw another of the men rush towards her, the man with just a sword. He seemed to have found his courage at the sight of her being pushed back; against two men she knew she would have little chance. She had to change the situation decisively. Instead of stepping backwards as the shieldsman swung his axe she stepped forward, pushing in as close as possible to him – despite her slim frame her weight unbalanced him and he stumbled backwards slightly, stopping his swipe at her in midair. She seized her chance and drove Needle into his forearm, stabbing it roughly through the veins and tendons in the wrist and dragging it upwards to his elbow. She was rewarded for her move by a strong blow to the side of her head by his shield, knocking her to the floor in one motion.

 

She could feel hot liquid roll down the side of her stinging face and the vision in her right eye blurred red. The other side of her face was pressed into the cold dirt; her right ear rang loudly from the hit and a wave of pain rolled across it every time her heart beat. Her head was burning and she had to fight he urge to throw up as she rolled onto her back and held Needle in front of her, unwilling to give up fighting. _Not today._ She dragged herself to her feet, swaying heavily, and tried to focus on her opponents but she dropped to one knee as the ground spun around her and the edges of her vision were tinged in darkness. Looking in front of her she could see the shadows of men, one kneeling holding his wrist, another rushing towards her with a sword. She threw herself back just in time to avoid being hit by the blade, landing on the rough ground behind her, crawling backwards up the rising hill.

 

The man lunged forwards with a firm thrust that she only narrowly dodged by rolling sideways, she retaliated by wildly swinging Needle back at him, the grace and form of her water dancing lost in her state of frenzied panic. Her hacking and slashing bought her precious seconds to scrabble to her feet before jabbing forward with Needle, over compensating and tripping into her aggressor. They both dropped to the ground, letting go of their swords, and rolled down a rocky verge punctuated by tufts of soft grass. As if by instinct her hands found their way to his throat, scratching and clawing and tearing his skin with her finger nails. She was ferocious and savage, a force of nature, but it was not enough. He struck the side of her face with his fist and used his other arm to trap her windpipe, holding her against the floor with all his weight. Even after she bit the inside of his wrist he kept pushing, forcing the air out of her. She gasped, desperately trying to pull his arm off her, she felt herself gag and her lungs began to burn inside her. Her head grew heavy and her struggling less forceful. As the darkness that had edged her vision before began to circle inwards she looked as another figure rushed towards her, presumably the man with two axes.

 

But the man had a sword, not axes; he was a huge figure in dark armour, and towered over the man pinning her to the ground. _The Hound,_ she thought, wishing she could let out a sigh of relief, noting in the back of her mind that this must have been how Sansa had felt when she’d been attacked by the rapers in King’s Landing. By the time the man trapping her had realised the Hound was there it was far too late, the Hound’s sword had already been swung and took the man’s face off in one powerful strike. The tension in her throat was released allowing her to breathe; she coughed and spluttered as the air filled her lungs, instinctively rolling on her side.

 

The Hound immediately rounded on the other man with two axes, positioning himself in front of Arya to protect her. It did not take the Hound long to dispatch the other tribesman: his sword was much longer than either of the one handed axes the man he fought carried, a simple backwards step put him out of range of the man’s attacks. From there it only took a single swing of the Hound’s sword to kill him: the tip tore through the side of the man’s cheek, shattering teeth and breaking his jaw.

He finished him by thrusting his own blade straight through his attacker’s chest. Arya couldn’t see where the archer had gone, presumably fled as the tide turned against them, but held on to consciousness for just long enough to watch the Hound approach the shieldsman; still kneeling holding onto his wounded arm. As the Hound stood over him the man dragged his shield above his head but, Arya noted with a faintly satisfied smile, against the Hound’s sword the shield splintered into pieces as though it had been made from bound straw – the man’s skull fragmented in a similar, albeit messier, fashion.

 

Finally content the danger had passed the Hound rushed to her side, kneeling over her with a look that was somewhere between fury and despair, he checked the lacerations to the side of her face and poured water over them immediately before searching the rest of her for wounds. _Safe_ in his arms she allowed herself to relax into the darkness; were it not for her losing consciousness, she could almost have laughed, remembering the Hound’s insistence on the merits of _a big fucking sword._ His eyes seemed to sparkle and a smile crossed the edges of his lips, she thought in her last moments before sleep overtook her, as she realised she’d muttered the words out loud.

 

\-----

 

_Seven hells!_ Her throat felt raw when she woke, one side of her face was numb and swollen; littered with small cuts and splinters from the shield that had been used to hit her. For a moment she’d feared she had lost her sight, remembering how blurred it had been, but her eyes soon adjusted in the darkness of the late evening – the landscape around her lit by soft moonlight. Her entire body ached from the fighting but none of the pain felt particularly deep, most of it was likely superficial. She tried to pull herself into a seated position but failed miserably, choosing instead that lying back down wouldn’t be too bad after all. Her movement however was all it took to prompt the Hound into action; he immediately passed her a bowl of stew and a skin of water.

 

“It’s cold,” he said sorrowfully, “there could be others out there, no fire tonight.”

 

She nodded to him and accepted the stew. She pressed the bowl to her lips and winced as she sipped and swallowed the broth, the act of swallowing sending pain up and down her battered throat. She coughed and let out a loud curse. She turned her head slowly back to the Hound, backlit against the moon and his face in shadows, “I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely.

 

Whatever he had been expecting it wasn’t that, his brow furrowed – though in the darkness she couldn’t have seen it – and he replied earnestly “don’t be, little wolf – you did well.”

 

She smiled slightly before sniping back “even without a big fucking sword?”

 

“Aye,” he replied, smirking, “even without that.” He looked over to her seemingly studying her before asking “how’d you bring down the big fellow? The prick with the two handed axe.”

 

She felt a flicker of pride cross her at the thought of the Hound looking round and finding the body of the leader, the realisation he must have had when he understood Arya had killed him on her own. She told him how she’d noted his armour was too small and it didn’t guard under his arms or how his fat meant there were gaps between the front and back plates. She explained that he was slow to swing his axe and it left him exposed to Needle, how he’d crumpled into a heap when she’d slipped her blade into his side. She told him how she’d fended back the shieldsman, that she’d pushed up close to him to strike his arm and how she’d nearly been knocked unconscious. She described her struggle with the swordsman, how she’d tripped into him and they’d tumbled down the verge before she stopped speaking. She flinched at the memory and took a deep breath, trying to make out the details of the Hound’s face, “thank you… Clegane.”

 

He let out an exasperated sigh and looked away from her, “Sandor,” he said into the valley, “Sandor, or the Hound… call me whatever the fuck you want just don’t call me Clegane, I’ve no desire to be known by my family’s blood. You might confuse me for my brother.”

 

“I won’t.” She asserted; a hint of strength behind her wavering voice, “You’re not like him. I thought you were, but you’re not.”

 

“You’ve never even met my brother,” the Hound replied dismissively, forgetting that she’d mentioned his brother on her blasted list.

 

“I have,” she looked away from him into the many different shades of dark blue that outlined a valley beneath them, “at the Tourney of the Hand… I saw you fight. He cut off his own horses’ head and attacked the Knight of the Flowers just because he lost the joust.” The Hound snorted at something as though he were about to laugh at some private joke, “and then I met him again at Harrenhal.” This time the Hound was silent, he leaned forward and studied her in detail, taking his silence as a sign for her to continue which, after some time she did, “I served as Lord Tywin’s cup bearer for some time there, poured his wine and served his meals but before that I was held with the prisoners in the main courtyard. Every morning the Mountain would choose one of us and had them tortured nearby before he’d mount their heads on spikes above where we slept. He chose one of my friends; if Tywin hadn’t intervened he would have killed Gendry…” She trailed off.

 

The Hound was silent for some time as though remembering something himself, “he always was a cunt,” he muttered into the darkness that surrounded them before taking a swig of water and passing the skin to her. After another extended pause he burst into laughter and said “you were Lord Tywin’s cup bearer? He had the whole of King’s Landing searching for you while you served him his food, tended his fires and sat on his councils.” He roared a hearty laugh, “I guess the mighty Tywin Lannister doesn’t know everything.”

 

In spite of herself, in spite of everything, she laughed too. They laughed together into the night, the sound echoing around though the valleys and the local rolling hills. They laughed together until the small hours of the next day. When at last she did drift off to sleep, she pulled up her furs and, forgetting to say her list just this once, whispered "Goodnight Sandor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the sigil on the armour is that of House Waxley, is this relevant? We'll see... Hope you enjoyed that new chapter, it took much longer to write this one than normal and hope you aren't too mad at me for departing from canon with it. Leave a comment if you liked it or want to see more of something (it makes my day to read them) and hopefully there will be a new chapter up next week.


	10. Four persons

She opened her eyes blearily, wincing at the brightness of the sky and struggling to adjust to the daylight. It must have been about midday; they should have started walking hours earlier if they were to make any decent progress, she thought to herself grimly as she tried to sit up. Immediately, she felt her body scream in protest, her muscles were burning and she became instantly tired, dizzy and sick as waves of pain rolled across her. Her eyes blurred black as she rested her head back against the grass and tried to swallow, only then noticing how dry her throat was. There was a deep stabbing pain in her chest. Her appearance must have been a horror; she concluded, feeling her hair clinging heavily to her clammy forehead and the pain from what she assumed must have been mulberry coloured bruises. She slowly tilted her head to the side, gritting her teeth against the pain, to search for the Hound; his furs and saddlebag were there but he wasn’t. She cursed, _where in seven hells was he?_

She furrowed her brow and shut her eyes, taking several deep breaths before she turned onto her side, letting out a sharp gasp as the pain rolled through her again. Her breathing was ragged and heavy as she pulled herself towards the Hound’s saddlebag to get water. She crawled forward, dragging her body with her arms and shaking at the pain before she heard a loud booming voice echo towards her.

 

“The fuck are you doing?” Sandor yelled, dropping the firewood he had been collecting and rushing to her, kneeling by her side.

 

For a moment he seemed uncertain as to what to do and his hands hovered above her before he decided to scoop her up in his arms and carry her back to her fur spread. She fought for a moment before thinking better of it and he cradled her as he gently set her down, her head leaning against the cold steel rivets of his chest armour. Once he had set her head down again the grass carefully he instinctively brushed her hair from her forehead with one hand, resting it on top of her head to check for fever, while the other hand found his personal supply of water and pressed it to her lips. In her desperation to gulp it down she spilt most of it across her chin, spluttering slightly and shaking in pain as her body rocked from dry coughs. Sandor steadied her and helped her into a sitting position this time, patiently standing vigil over her and giving her small sips that she could manage, careful not to waste any more of the water.

 

“How much food do we have left?” Arya asked hoarsely once she had had her fill of the water. When the Hound shook his head in response she cursed. “Is there anywhere nearby?”

 

“An old holdfast, a few miles away – but you’re in no state to ride and I won’t leave you here alone lest more tribesmen come,” Sandor replied, revealing half a loaf of stale bread from one of the pouches he kept on him and offering it to her. “You need your strength girl,” he told her when she shook her head but, both seeing how he wouldn’t accept no for an answer and only just realising how hungry she was, she ravenously took it from him. It may have been too hard for bread by half but in that moment it tasted better to her than anything the cooks at Winterfell could have prepared.

 

As the Hound sat down next to her, his armour making a clinking noise as he did so, she looked across the valley, only now appreciating her surroundings. In the distance rose the snow covered peaks of the Mountains of the Moon and, while they couldn’t see it from there, she knew that the Eyrie was situated at the very top, hidden in cloud cover. It was the perfect defence, she reflected; even if an enemy host could take the Bloody Gate they’d never take the Eyrie. The Bloody Gate guarded the Vale of Arryn, forcing anyone who wished to enter into the bottom of a narrow gorge where you could barely stand four a breast. She remembered Maester Luwin saying that armies of ten thousand and a hundred thousand would count for the same against that gate; it had never been breached. It was little wonder it was described as impregnable. Somewhere from the depths of her mind she remembered Tywin Lannister describing Harrenhal, _a million men could have marched against its walls, and a million men would have been repelled._ She found herself wondering how the Eyrie would fare against dragons.

 

“How’d you get out of King’s Landing?” Sandor asked, interrupting her from her thoughts. She realised he’d not once asked her about how she got to the Brotherhood on their travels; he really had no idea what she’d been through. She had figured he just didn’t care, just wanted to get her first to the Twins then to the Eyrie, that all he wanted was his reward but it was different now, something had changed. She suspected that the conversation about his brother had sparked his interest but resolved to tell him everything and leave nothing out.

 

“I left King’s Landing with a party of Night’s Watch recruits disguised as an orphan. Yoren, our leader, cut my hair and promised to return me to Winterfell on the way North but we had barely been on the Kingsroad a fortnight when we were set upon by Goldcloaks,” she said, before swallowing the last mouthful of the bread Sandor gave her. It hurt her throat slightly as it went down and, as she winced, the Hound gave her another swig of water for the pain.

 

“Were they after you?” He asked, leaning forward to take a look at the cuts on her face as she spoke.

 

“No, they were after Gen–” she started before stopping herself. As she looked at Sandor, who had started cleaning the cuts on her face with a damp cloth, he seemed different from the Hound she had seen at Winterfell, from the monster that had killed Mycah. For a moment she almost smiled at the memory of the last time he had washed the blood from her… but even if the Hound had changed, even if he didn’t want her just for the money her aunt could pay, the Goldcloaks thought Gendry was dead. It was safer that way: otherwise they’d be looking for Gendry all his life and anyone who found him would get the King’s reward – likely a greater sum than what Aunt Lysa would pay for her. The Hound may have said “fuck the king” at the Inn on the Crossroads but she could not shake the memory of him taking the silver from the man at the farm. Would he hand Gendry to the King if Aunt Lysa refuses to pay for her? _I will not lead him to Gendry. He kept my secret, I will keep his, I owe him that much,_ she promised to herself. She still didn’t know why the Goldcloaks wanted him, and she wasn’t even certain if he was still alive but in case he was, _just in case,_ she would tell nobody he had survived, not even Sandor.

 

“They were after one of the other recruits,” she corrected herself, “they didn’t know about me.” The Hound looked at her, he knew she hadn’t said something but seemed also to know better than to push her any further on the matter. In her own time she continued, “They killed Yoren, he took out a whole bunch of them on his own even after he was shot with a crossbow, that was where Polliver killed Lommy and stole Needle,” a slight smile crept up the lip of the Hound as she said the name of her sword, “they marched the rest of us to Harrenhal.”

 

“Where you met my brother,” The Hound finished her sentence for her, looking into her grey eyes and driving her to the part of the story he was clearly most interested in. She nodded, wincing as she moved the muscles in her neck. When she felt well enough to continue, she did.

 

“We were kept in outdoor pens, the Mountain chose someone each day to be tortured to death in front of us by the Tickler,” there was a flicker or recognition in his eyes, whether because he’d heard her say the name on her list or from his own memories of his brother she didn’t know. “He put rats in buckets and then strapped them to the prisoner’s chest, heating the end of them ‘til the rats burrowed out. Then they mounted the head’s above us.”

 

“That sounds like Gregor… cunt.” The Hound said, more to himself than her, before he took a swig of the water and asked “how’d you survive it all?”

 

“When Tywin arrived he had us all put to work; rather than just standing around all day. When I refused to kneel he spotted I was a girl and took me as his cupbearer.” She told him.

 

“What about your friend? The murderer; the one who’d kill me with his little finger?” The Hound asked; a slight hint of mockery in his voice.

 

“When we were attacked, by the Goldcloaks, there was a caged wagon where they held the most dangerous prisoners. It caught fire in the attack and, after I let them out, one of them – a Faceless man – said he would give me three deaths in return for the lives I had saved.” She told him.

 

“If he was a Faceless man, how’d he get caught?” The Hound asked, and for once she didn’t have an answer. She had never asked Jaqen how he’d ended up imprisoned, she assumed it must have been because he wanted to be there but after the wagon caught fire he had needed her help to get out. Seeing that he’d wounded her pride somewhat Sandor asked, “And did he? Did he kill for you?”

 

“Yes,” she said, “first he killed the Tickler, then one of Tywin’s captains who caught me reading their war plans and then…” She paused in thought.

 

“Then?” The Hound asked, despite his still slightly mocking tone he seemed genuinely curious. They had been travelling together for months now and yet knew very little about each other.

 

“I gave him his own name, I only agreed to unname him if he helped me and my friends escape, he killed all the guards at the gatehouse and we just walked out.” She said; proud of herself.

 

“You just walked out of Harrenhal?” The Hound said with a laugh; this was no doubt not the story he had been expecting from her. “Tywin had you all that time, right there in front of him, and you just walked out.” He laughed again, and she managed a slight chuckle before coughing and gasping slightly at that stabbing pain that erupted in her chest. They sat in silence for a moment, his hand resting on her back to give her support, before he said, in a much lower voice, “it’s a shame.”

 

“What is?” She asked.

 

“Your assassin, the Faceless man,” he said in a still slightly disbelieving voice – nobody doubted the Faceless men existed, they were well known for their services, but that she had encountered one and saved his life was obviously a little too much for him to take in, “he offered you three kills, you could’ve chosen anyone and he’d kill them?” He said, questioning her.

 

“Yes,” she answered, reminded of the words Gendry had said when she’d finally told him about Jaqen, _you could’ve ended the war._

“Shame you couldn’t have named my brother, crossed his name of your list… off both our lists.” He said. He was still looking at her, but his eyes were unfocussed, presumably visualising the body of his brother, whatever history lie between the two of them, Arya concluded, it had bred a real hatred in Sandor.

 

“I could’ve chosen you,” she said absentmindedly.

 

She didn’t know why she said those words, she hadn’t meant to. She regretted them instantly. Immediately Sandor withdrew, clearly hurt – but as fast as the pain had crossed his face it was gone, replaced by the steel expression he had worn when she first saw him in Winterfell those years ago. It’s true; it would’ve been simpler for her to strike the Hound off her list while she had been in Harrenhal, back before she had ever seen the other side to him. Perhaps that’s why she said those words, Sandor confused her. The Tickler, Polliver, Joffrey, Tywin, Cersei, Ilyn Payne – they were all evil people, people who deserved to die. She had always thought Sandor was one of them, but now she wasn’t so sure. And then it hit her, _the Hound and Sandor are not the same person_. _The Hound was armour_. She cursed inwardly, it would have been easier if she hadn’t gotten to know him; he had saved her on more than one occasion, he had fought for her, protected her, he might even die for her. How can a man so monstrous be anything but a monster? She asked herself. _Seven hells!_ She could have screamed from frustration – she had wanted him dead for what felt like as long as she could remember and yet here she was, talking with him, enjoying his company even – he made her feel… _what does he make me feel?_

 

She continued to stare at him, she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to see – he was _literally_ two people. Unlike almost everyone else in Westeros he wore both his faces all the time, the Hound and Sandor, battling over the same skin – the twisted murderer and the knight. It dawned on her, _am I any different?_ He had done unspeakable things, he had murdered and stolen, but were they really that different? _I enjoyed killing Polliver,_ she remembered, her stomach lurching slightly. _He was a shit and deserved to die but I enjoyed doing it…_ She found herself wondering if her father ever enjoyed killing; he had never seemed to, always wearing a grim expression when a member of the Night’s Watch deserted, but he must have killed dozens of men in Robert’s uprising and in the Greyjoy Rebellion. The first time she had killed, that pitiful stable boy, she had felt sick – he had cried and begged her to pull the sword out, but the Frey man, Polliver, even the Hill Tribesmen; some part of her enjoyed killing them, took pleasure in it. She liked the way the blood poured from them. Did the stable boy deserve to die? Did she have to kill him, really? She could have just run. She closed her eyes, swallowing hard and ignoring the parched feeling of her throat this time, she had been practicing stabbing Needle since Jon gave it to her, dreaming of becoming a warrior; the stable boy was probably no older than Mycah… _Am I on someone else’s list for his death?_

“I’m sorry,” she said, but whether the Hound noticed she couldn’t say. He stood up and walked back down the slope to pick up the firewood he had dropped. She cursed herself, screwing her fists into balls until the skin around her knuckles went white.

 

It was probably under an hour before they spoke again, but it felt a lot longer. Every second was drawn out. The Hound wordlessly built and lit a fire before putting the last of their meat – what she suspected was goat – into a stew. She had lain back down and tried to sleep. When she was unable to she found herself staring into the skies above at the various cloud patterns. If she concentrated really hard she could almost visualise herself lying down on one of the roofs of Winterfell… Bran would be climbing nearby, encouraging her to scale one of the towers. She’d never tell him but Bran was a much better climber than her. Mother would call them and no doubt send her to Septa Mordane for a lecture on what a proper lady would do. Father would probably just laugh. She felt a deep sadness roll over her, in their last days in King’s Landing her father seldom smiled like he would in Winterfell. She wondered what they would say about her, _Father, Mother_ … Septa Mordane would probably yell at her in her boy’s clothes, covered in blood and bruises.

 

She looked towards the Hound, fighting back the tears that stung in her eyes, she felt herself soften to him. She would never see Father or Mother again, she would probably not see anyone of her old family again, Sansa was still captive in King’s Landing, Jon would never leave the Wall, Winterfell was a ruin and while she hadn’t heard about Bran and Rickon, the state of Winterfell didn’t give her much cause for hope. Hot Pie was gone, Gendry was gone – whether dead or not she wasn’t sure, but the Hound – no, _Sandor,_ he wasn’t. He was here, now, and he was the closest she had to father. Whether they went to Lysa or Bravos the Hound meant more to her now than her Aunt ever had. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed again, though the wind took her words from her and scattered them across the valley.

 

He brought the stew to her, helping her into a sit again and guiding the bowl to her lips. Though his face was unreadable she felt she could see a deep sadness in his eyes, like his heart had been struck from him. Once she finished the stew he turned to leave but she caught his arm. Her grip was soft, the bruising had sapped her strength and her fingers themselves were cut, but it was enough. He paused for a moment as she held on, all it would have taken was for him to step forward and his arm would have slipped from his grasp. In truth he could have stayed still and her arm would have fallen anyway, she didn’t have the power to keep it there. He turned to her, instinctively supporting her arm and looked at her, unsure as to what she was asking him to do; unsure as to what she expected him to do. She pulled herself forward into a full sitting position, to the protest of her body, and leaned her head against him, whispering gently, “the river…”

 

The enormity of what she had said alarmed him and he drew backwards for a second, staring at her in surprise and confusion. She was covered in blood and dirt, her clothes were filthy and she couldn’t stand on her own. Her eyes were pleading. He nodded, scooping her into his arms, and walked her towards the nearest stream. When they got there, it was not as wide as the one they had used last time but deeper by two. When he walked into it he sank to his waste, gently lowering Arya into the fast flowing water, careful to make sure it never covered her face. She flinched as the cold ran over her, finding its way through her clothes and seeping into her skin. She tensed up as the bruises across her body began to burn and the cuts sear with pain. Sandor gently let her legs go, allowing her to rest her feet against the bottom of the river bed while supporting her weight by holding his hands under her shoulders. Her hands gripped his arms tightly for support and for what felt like an impossibly long amount of time they held each other.

 

It was Arya who moved first, she let go of the Hound’s arms and reached down to the bottom of her jerkin. She tried to lift it over her head but couldn’t; the bruising on her right arm prevented her from being able to lift it much higher than her stomach. The Hound let go of her armpits slowly, making sure she could stand, before helping her lift the leather padding from her chest. Under her jerkin she wore only a thin wet shirt of faded wool that clung to her figure tightly. Through it the Hound could see her form perfectly; the rise of her breasts was evident and her nipples were visibly erect from the cold water. He stopped, just staring at her; he swallowed so hard it made the lump in his throat bob up and down. It made her uncomfortable; she had spent the last years dressed as a boy and before that being called names like Arya Horseface by Sansa and Jeyne Poole. The idea that he had stopped to appreciate what he in fact thought was an exquisite sight didn’t occur to her.

 

The last time he had bathed her she had kept her top on. He had not seen her naked, but she knew she couldn’t wash herself in this state, and the cuts she felt needed to be cleaned. Her hands had already dropped to the hem of her shirt to remove it before he broke out of whatever thought he was in, helping her lift it. If he was excited by what was underneath he did not show it, his face was tormented, Arya thought, though looking down she could see why. Her breasts themselves were bound tight with cloth to make her appear less like a girl, something she had done since her time with Yoren, but the skin around them was a shambled patchwork of mulberry, brown and yellow bruising, interrupted only by thin red cuts. It was little wonder she was in so much pain. She released the clip that fastened her bindings and felt her breasts drop free, a great weight lifted from her chest. The Hound’s jaw dropped slightly.

 

He must have become aware that she was watching him because he immediately dipped the bandages he had brought with him in the river and carefully rubbed it over her shoulder. She flinched as he brushed over the bruising, shaking slightly. It was impressive, she thought, that for someone as vicious as the Hound he kept his hands still and moved with a grace she found surprising. He felt them trace down her arms, and watched as her darkened skin lightened once the mud washed off, unfortunately it also made the bruising appear worse. He worked on her as if he were whetting the edge of his sword, searching for its true colour under the layers of dirt and dried sweat. When the cloth moved down to her breasts she took in a deep breath, the feeling was still tender but with it was a sensation she hadn’t felt since the last time they were both in a river together. As he moved the wet rag across her left nipple she felt warmth spread through her despite the coldness of the water. Her stomach tightened into a knot and she found herself biting on her lip to stop herself making a noise. He repeated the action and she let out a slight whimper, whether from the pain or something else she wasn’t sure. He looked at her, the deep sadness in his eyes again, and said softly “close your eyes wolf-girl… it’ll make it easier…” But this time she shook her head, this time she would look at him, she resolved. _He is my pack now._

She felt herself blushing as he washed her right side; a fire began to burn inside her. She shivered from its warmth. The flames licked the inside of her chest, wrapped their way around her bones and coursed through her veins. She felt pressure building within her and felt a sense of immediate longing when he finished washing her torso and stepped around to drape the rag over the back of her neck and shoulders. He unknotted the muscles there as he gently applied pressure. It seemed impossible to her that this man, the man that had murdered and stolen, that had killed Mycah, could make her melt under his touch. They were both two people, she was Arya Stark, heir to Winterfell and yet she was also ‘Arry, the orphan and nobody. She had been ‘Arry with Yoren, she had been ‘Arry in Harrenhal, the last couple of years she had been ‘Arry more than she had Arya. Only Gendry had seen her as Arya, Gendry and now the Hound. Mayhaps, she thought, the Hound was being Sandor around her. She was interrupted from her considerations by the Hound running the cloth down her spine. She could have screamed as he pressed against a particularly deep bruise but instead her legs gave way and she plunged into the water, her scream lost under its surface.

 

The coldness surrounded her, a blue darkness; it ran into her mouth and ears and eyes, yet there was peace. Her skin felt taught around her and the deep pain of her wounds felt numbed. Inside her the warmth was growing, it spread from her stomach to her breasts to between her legs. The pressure inside her had welled up until she felt like she would explode. When Sandor’s hands pulled her back to her feet and out of the water she turned to face him and took hold of his arm, pulling the rag out of his hands and guiding it to her breeches. He hesitated for a moment, looking into her face, before he allowed her to lead his hand between her thighs. She pouted as his hand rested on her slit, eager for the release. She couldn’t have known it, but the Hound had never seen before him such a beautiful view as the wild and untameable Arya Stark, eyes heavy with lust, eager for him to pleasure her.

 

He slipped a single finger inside her and she immediately let out a sigh, leaning forwards against his chest. She shivered as her breasts touched against the cold steel rivets of the front of his armour. Arya had never felt so many intense feelings, her head was spinning from pain and pleasure, her heart was pounding against her chest and her breathing came in short sharp gasps. The pressure continued to build inside her like the string of a bow pulled taught before its release. She moaned out loud as he pushed another finger inside her, stretching her. She held both her hands against him to steady herself and let out soft moans as he fingered her. When she came, she came hard, collapsing to her knees in the water until just her head was above the surface. Waves of pleasure rolled through her, blotting out all the pain she could feel in a moment of pure ecstasy. She slammed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, feeling her whole body tremble and wishing she could hold on to the sensation forever. Her legs trembled under the surface of the water, her toes were screwed up tight and her hands gripped Sandor’s armour with a strength she didn’t think she had. She could even smell her own arousal on Sandor’s hand as he tried to pull her to her feet, failing the first time as her legs bucked instantly.

 

They stood together for some time, gripping onto each other in the water. She didn’t know if she was Arya Stark or ‘Arry or nobody. She didn’t know whether she should hate or love the man in front of her, friend and foe, who had taken away and given so much, who was all she had left in the world, and all she hated. In that moment she felt like she had to believe there was hope for him, so that there could be hope for her. Even then, even in the midst of all that pleasure and the tenderness of their embrace, she felt the darkness in him and her. It would’ve been easier to have Jaqen kill him while she was in Harrenhal, she reflected. She had her list, he had his, _how far down her list would she get before the wolf and the Hound were one and the same?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Now that I know where Season 4 has gone I can spend a little more time getting to where it got to, while the broad strokes will be echoed in this work there will, as you saw here, be significant diversions from canon. I hope you enjoy it :) I found this chapter very tricky to write, but here it is, and 2:30am I need to get some sleep now!


	11. The Holdfast

They reached the holdfast after nightfall and, although they had only travelled a few miles, their journey had been slow and arduous. Rain lashed down at them from above spurred on by harsh and piercing winds. Arya felt an icy chill spreading inside her as she took cold air into her lungs and water seeped through her jerkin and light rough-spun tunic. It gripped her chest, freezing her veins and ran from her heart to the very tips of her finger nails. Her hair clung to her forehead and the side of her face; she had to keep pushing out of her eyes. She could still barely stand let alone ride her own horse because of her injuries so they had tied her white mare to the Hound’s black horse, leading it, while Arya sat with Sandor. She faced sideways with both her legs thrown over one half of the horse and her body leaning against the Hound’s chest both for support and as a small amount of shelter from the biting winds.

 

Her every muscle in her body was burning in protest either from the bruising or just the cold. Arya’s ears and face stung in the chill night air and her drenched clothes were waterlogged and heavy, _the gods only know how Sandor’s armour must feel on him._ After they left the river Sandor had urged for them to rest another night so she could heal a little better but storm clouds rolled in and they were too exposed on the ridge. It was foolish to travel by night over the uneven ground, and whatever light might have been shone by the moon was blotted out by the heavy clouds, but they had no choice. Their horses were skittish, each rumble of thunder making them shake in terror and more than once they had threatened to bolt if not for the steady direction of the Hound, who seemed unnaturally still and at ease with the storm.

 

Arya felt miserable, each of her short and sharp breaths stinging her as her wet clothes weighed down against her lungs; squeezing the air out of them. The cold might’ve made her throw up had she eaten enough to. Instead she found herself coughing and retching; all the while wishing she hadn’t bound her breasts again as the bindings bit savagely against them with every movement, rubbing against the old bruises and no doubt creating new ones. Her stomach howled with hunger. She knew that they had no food and the chances of their being some in the holdfast were slim to none judging by the state of the other farms and settlements they’d past in the last weeks of travelling. More than likely it would be empty and if they were attacked again they’d be too weak to fight, she reflected bitterly, but at least in the holdfast they might have a chance. There they could not only shelter from the weather but also bar the door and force attackers to fight one by one.

 

In the darkness Arya couldn’t make out the structure that loomed before them, she wouldn’t have known it was there at all had a flash of lightning not revealed it for the briefest of moments. She was at first relieved and then apprehensive when the Hound stopped and said they’d arrived; relieved that their journey was over but fearful of what came next. There were no fires and nothing to indicate, in the absence of the lightning, that the building was either there or occupied; how the Hound spotted the door to it she had no idea, everything was blurred together in the dim murky gloom that surrounded them. Arya couldn’t help but feel a shiver, though whether from fear or the cold she couldn’t say, when the Hound slipped off the back of the saddle behind her and, drawing his sword, stepped into the blackness. _Fear cuts deeper than swords,_ the voice of Syrio whispered from the shadows, but whatever courage she summoned was scattered to the winds with every passing moment the Hound was gone. The lightning strike had all but destroyed her ability to pick out differences in the shadows, and even when she tried to adjust and focus her sight on her surroundings the rain was too heavy and ran into her now stinging eyes. Though she knew she couldn’t be more than four or five feet from the ground on the back of the horse she became anxious at her inability to see it, as though the earth had fallen away and she hovered over a great bottomless chasm.

 

She closed her eyes; they were useless to her anyway, and began to focus on what she could hear. The cold, hunger and her wounds had sapped the strength from her and it took all the energy she could muster to hold her balance on the horse and just listen. At first there was nothing beyond the heavy pounding of her heart and the sounds of the rain bouncing against her ears but then, gradually, she made out other noises. She heard the horses as they breathed and snorted; and their hooves splashing and squelching against the muddy ground as they nervously adjusted their footing. It gave her a little comfort to hear that the earth was still below her, even if she couldn’t see it. Soon enough she made out more; there was a stream nearby and she could even make out the echoes of Sandor’s steel boots on the stone floors inside the holdfast. They were faint and far off and almost inaudible against the rising orchestra of rustling leaves in the tree canopies, moaning winds across the valleys and, a little closer than she cared to think about, the not too distant growls and shrieks of shadowcats. The storm of noise built in Arya’s ears louder and louder until she wished she could hear nothing at all.

 

“Come on little wolf,” Sandor’s voice, powerful and caring, cut through the noises of the night with such force that it made her jump and lose her balance; she almost fell off the horse.

 

He scooped her into his arms and cradled her as he walked her to the Holdfast. At the back of her mind she wondered if this was how Bran felt; powerless and weak, having to be carried around all day, but she pushed the thought away almost as soon as it had come; she did not want to think about Winterfell now, she needed to be strong. The Hound walked with her almost twenty paces in the darkness and she had almost began to wonder if he’d forgotten his way to the door when she heard the sounds of his boots scrape against stone rather than the mud outside. The clink of the metal resonated around the room and, even without seeing it; she guessed the room was less than a stone’s throw from wall to wall and half as wide as it was long. He set her down in the blackness and leant her against a cold stone wall before turning and leaving. For the first time since the lightning had struck she could finally make out the shape of the Hound silhouetted against the frame of the door; black against dark blue.

 

As the Hound left the door more details emerged; the shadows separated themselves and the various forms around her began to take shape. She was in a large antechamber with a high, vaulted ceiling held up by six columns linked with arches and each standing on a square plinth. They were set in three pairs running backwards to the far wall, where a large stone hearth stood. To the side of the hearth was a small pile of wooden logs and above; long, dark scorch marks ran like smudged charcoal from the mantle of the fire all the way up the walls. Where it met the roof she could just about make out a large faded tapestry, white candles with red flames on a field of grey. A foul stench hung in the air and without light the stone was black as pitch; it reminded Arya a little too closely of her time in Harrenhal serving Tywin. Sure enough, in the centre of the chamber, there was even a large overturned table like the one in Tywin’s war room. The cobbled floor was decorated with a mixture of parchments, scrolls and leaves, strewn around in all directions. She could see the great oak door had been knocked clean off its hinges and was lying against one of the arches; she gritted her chattering teeth together and tried to put aside the grim thought that the previous occupants had been no more successful in holding this place as her and Sandor would likely be if they were attacked.

 

There were small, narrow gaps in the wall on the opposite side of the room with what looked like cast iron fittings, she guessed they were likely arrow slits, but whatever they were, they let in the cold air from outside which, alongside the frame where the great door should be, created an uncomfortable, bitter draft. The cold air nipped at her fingers and bit deep into her waterlogged clothing and sunk its teeth into her breast. As she sat there; tired, aching and shaking, she felt a swathe of relief when Sandor returned, having stabled the horses. He picked up the great oak door and set it against the frame it had once belonged to before ramming it into place, using the large table as a support. Only after he was confident the door was secure he knelt down by Arya’s side, taking off one of his gauntlets and brushing her hair back before he pressed his hand against her forehead. His hand was surprisingly warm against her skin and it sent a slight shudder through her though she didn’t understand why. She did, however, feel loss when the Hound turned away and walked towards the hearth, she missed something about his touch.

 

He hurriedly set about lighting a fire; filling the hearth with logs and parchment before striking two flints against it. The fire struggled to take at first and even when he managed a small flame, each breath of wind or flicker risked it going out. Even after the first logs were alight it amount to little more than a small orange glow, barely penetrating the dark gulf that surrounded it. From Arya’s position at the end of the chamber, the small light looked a world away; it seemed to dance and bounce as the small flame rose and collapsed with all the uncertainty and vulnerability of a newly born fawn taking its first steps. But Sandor tended it dutifully, building it back up where it fell and feeding it just enough for it to rise higher without smothering it. She smiled slightly as she watched him guard the flame from the incoming breeze, _not unlike what he’s done for me._

Under his watch the fire grew larger and brighter until it filled the entire hearth; roaring as the tips of its flames licked the top of the stone mantle. The damp logs hissed and cracked loudly and as the Hound added a particularly large piece of wood the fire belched forward a cloud of embers that skipped through the air like a sprinkle of fireflies. The bright light bathed the room in beige, casting long shadows, and a breath of warmth washed towards Arya. It was a welcome feeling, but the cold had set too deep for her to enjoy it; her bones felt brittle and her fingers would not stop trembling. Even with the fire her vision was blurred, her head felt heavy and it was all she could do not to be sick. She wasn’t sure if she chose to lie down or fell but suddenly her face was pressed against the cold stone floor. Tremors ran up and down her spine and her breathing was shallow and slow.

 

The Hound saw her and rushed over to her, his brow furrowed and his face panic stricken. He scooped Arya into his arms and brought her across the room towards the hearth, laying her down just an arm’s length from the fire. Immediately, steam rose from her drenched clothes and even in glow of the orange light she was pale. They both knew what had to be done, she wouldn’t be able to get warm for as long as she wore her soaked garments; but Sandor didn’t move. He just knelt nearby watching her, the fire shining light onto the deep scarring of his face. It was a strange image, to be relieved to have the warmth and heat of the flames and yet see their destructive force etched into Sandor, for the first time since they had begun their journey so long ago she thought on what it must be like for him. She knew he was afraid of fire and yet most evenings he had built one for them as though it meant nothing to him. This fire, though, was different; he had built this one for her, and although she couldn’t tell if he was nervous about her or the size of the flames next to him, she suspected it was a mixture of both.

 

Wordlessly, though with a grunt of pain, she pulled herself into a sitting position and her hands traced down to the bottom hem of her jerkin; as she pulled it over her head and threw it against the stone floor the Hound turned away from her. The wet tunic she wore clung to her as she tried to take it off; making a squelching noise as she finally threw it away. She released the bindings that held her breasts together and gave a huge sigh of relief as she breathed out, finally unrestricted, before untying the knot on her breeches and pulling them down to her ankles and then kicking each foot out of them. She did the same for her shift before placing her clothes in a pile slightly closer to the hearth to dry. Her body trembled, partly from the chill that ran from the small of her neck to the bottom of her spine but also from the sensation of once again being naked in front of the Hound. It both excited and terrified her, and the fact that he had turned away wounded her, though she did not understand why.

 

As she stared at the Hound’s back memories swarmed towards her of Winterfell; the voices of Sansa and Jeyne Poole surrounded and tormented her as their voices yelled out _Arya Horseface._ For most of her life people had called her a boy or the ugly sister. They laughed and made japes when she had worn dresses and the only person who’d ever called her a lady was Gendry, and only then to poke fun at her. She told herself that she didn’t care what any of them thought about her; she never wanted to be a Lady. And yet, now, sitting down against the cobbled floor utterly undressed, she realised she did care what the Hound thought of her. She drew herself to full height, using the square plinth on the closest column as a support and addressed him, her body shaking from the effort and her head spinning.

 

“Is something… wrong?” Arya asked him, her voice small in the echoing room.

 

For a few long moments he did nothing, he didn’t even acknowledge she’d said anything, but soon enough he turned to face her, his armour clinking as he did so and his eyes glinting orange from the fire. He stared at her for what felt like the longest time, he looked at her from her head to her toes, drinking in the sight before him. His gaze passed from her steel eyes down to her lips, then her neck, to the rise of her breasts, along her stomach, to the curve of her pelvis and down to small curls of hair that covered her private parts before trailing back up again. When he met her eyes the second time he seemed sad, and looked towards the fire, his face tormented. She didn’t know why but she had the sudden urge to cover herself up and placed one hand over the gap between her legs and used the flat side of her arm to hide her breasts. She didn’t know what she was expecting to happen, she didn’t know what she wanted to happen, but she immediately felt foolish. She looked down at herself, at her arm covering her chest, she was covered in dirt and mulberry bruises. She was _Arya Horseface_ all over again _._

The Hound must have sensed her discomfort because he walked towards the column that rose on the left side of the chamber, stepped onto the square plinth it was rooted to, and reached up to grab the faded tapestry she’d seen earlier on the ceiling. He tore it down in one swift movement, shaking the dust from it, before throwing it around Arya’s shoulders. The weight of the tapestry surprised her and her knees buckled under it, sending her straight to the floor. The material it was woven from was coarse and rough against her skin but she was cold enough that she didn’t care. She wrapped herself up in it and sank against the closest pillar, to the right of the hearth. The deep set chill she had felt gradually began to ebb from her body though it left her feeling tired and exhausted. For the better part of an hour they must have sat in the room in silence, both leaning against the pair of pillars by the hearth with the fire in between them.

 

Sandor spoke first.

 

“You should sleep,” he told her, his voice low and oddly quiet.

 

She nodded to him, her eyes fixed on the dancing of the fire, before she asked him again, her voice commanding more power this time, “was something wrong?”

 

“No.” He said; his voice little more than a whisper as he looked at her with an unreadable expression that held a mixture of sadness, pity and a number of other emotions Arya couldn’t make out. He offered her a small smile but it faded as soon as it had arrived.

 

“Then… why?” Arya trailed off, she didn’t really know what she was asking; her heart was pounding against her chest so hard it threatened to burst her ribcage. She didn’t understand what was happening to her; ever since that first day by the river when he had washed the moon blood from her something had changed in her; her body wanted more of that feeling all the time. It was like the sensation she felt killing Polliver but even more intense. When she had felt it, the two of them standing against each other in the river, for a moment Arya wasn’t alone. She was more than just herself, it had been like when they had fought the Freys, or the Red Band, or even the Tribesmen; she felt something between them, a bond of sorts. _And yet he killed Mycah._

“Not tonight,” he said after some time and, after looking at him closely, she realised he looked tired. The journey must have taken it out of him as well. They stared at each other for a moment, studying one another’s faces, before he turned away from her and the fire and told her once again “you should sleep.”

 

And she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed upload. This chapter is based largely on an experience I had while hiking in the foothills of the Alps, after a week of walking in the cold and rain I was told I had developed exposure and became seriously ill. Like their experience in the bogland, it was spurred on by my own past exploits.
> 
> As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I've had lots of lovely comments recently so thank you for them, they mean so much as, while I love writing this story, it can sometimes be very tough to find the right words. I'll admit this chapter is slightly shorter as I decided the second half would make a better separate chapter but nonetheless, I do hope it doesn't disappoint :)
> 
> In case anyone's interested, the idea behind this chapter was that neither the Hound nor Arya are particularly good at expressing themselves, I wanted to see how much I could write without their trademark banter. Arya is going through changes she doesn't understand and is, literally, lost in her own worries in the dark here. That was some of what I was aiming for, you can decide if I worked for yourselves :)


	12. Want and Wantonness

Arya awoke to find shafts of daylight streaming through the warped cast iron fittings of the arrow slits that lined one wall of the chamber; in the smoky air the light cut across the room in diagonal slats and landed on the dusty stone floor. She immediately pulled herself into a sitting position to take in her surroundings properly, noticing as she did that the sharp pains of the bruises and cuts she’d received from her encounter with the tribesmen were replaced with just dull aches. As she sat upright the coarse, heavy material of the tapestry that the Hound had wrapped around her slipped from her shoulders; exposing the milky skin of her bare back and torso to the air. The tapestry scratched uncomfortably against her nipples before falling in a crumpled heap around her legs. Instinctively her hands scooped up the folds of the fabric to cover her breasts, feeling vulnerable without the bindings she usually pinned them to her with, but hating the rough texture of it against her skin, she let go and the tapestry dropped once again to her waist.

 

Despite there being a slight, cool breeze against her uncovered back the room was surprisingly warm. She smiled a little, feeling her dry lips crack slightly, when she saw the fire still burning, albeit much smaller than it had been. The bits of wood inside were oddly shaped; she guessed the Hound must have run out of logs in the night for he’d dismantled the bookcase and what looked like two of the legs from the great oak table by the door to keep the fire going. He seemed to have gathered a number of the books strewn across the floor to use for kindling. Leaning against the base of one of the nearby pillars she gave a sigh of relief at the knowledge the worst of the pain was behind her; it was true her head still stung from being hit with the wooden shield but the nicks and scrapes from the rest of the fight felt largely healed. Indeed had it not been for the sickness from the storm she would already have rose to her feet; but as it was, unsure of her strength and still trembling slightly from the ordeals of the last few days, she decided to stay seated, at least for a little while.

 

Her eyes glanced around the room; in the darkness she hadn’t noticed quite how filthy it was; leaves, scrolls and books were scattered across the floor in heaps and here and there she could see pooled dark stains across the floor and against the walls that looked suspiciously like dried blood. The Holdfast had clearly been derelict for a while before they had found it; and it was obvious a vicious fight had taken place there. The six stone columns that supported the vaulted ceiling were heavily chipped and lined with cracks, no doubt where swords had struck them, and she found herself remembering that the door had been knocked clean off its hinges. There was evidence of extensive fire damage around the arrow slits; the stones were charred and black, the mortar cracked and the metal fittings themselves were distorted and in some places had melted altogether into patterns that resembled candle wax. A shiver ran through her as she was reminded of the many burnt out rooms and chambers of Harrenhal. _That was dragonfire,_ she told herself, pushing the memory to the back of her mind. Given that most of the damage here was above the arrow slits she guessed the fire was started from the exterior of the Holdfast, not inside. She supposed the attackers must have piled up wood and other flammable materials against the outside walls and set it alight, presumably to use the ensuing smoke to hide themselves from archers and weaken the resolve of the men inside.

 

She picked up a bound leather journal lying nearby and mindlessly flicked through its pages; much of the writing was too smudged to make out and that which was legible was unbearably tedious – from what she could tell it contained shipping manifests from the harbour town of Wickenden; wool, wine and cattle imports and exports for the year 297AC. Disinterested, she tossed the book away and instead looked around at the other books and papers around. Eventually she picked up a folded piece of parchment, on which were two broken wax seals. One of them she recognised as being the sigil of House Arryn, a falcon next to a crescent moon, and the other she did not know; there was the same crescent moon but this time it was guarded by a portcullis and surrounded by strange symbols she’d never encountered before. It read:

 

_“Lord Waxley,_

_Whilst the Lady Arryn was greatly moved by your plea and appreciates the difficulty facing yourself and your subjects in Wickenden, it is her deepest regret she is unable to spare any men to assist in your campaigns against the Tribesmen. Since the Lady Arryn called the banners behind the Bloody Gate, we are having troubles of our own keeping even the High Road safe; unfortunately it seems war has made the savages bolder, and the recent patronage offered to one band by House Lannister seems to have fuelled their fervour for war. Rumour has it the Imp promised to give them the entirety of the Vale if they escorted him to his father safely._

_Once again, Lady Arryn passes on her deep regrets and wishes you success against the tribesmen._

_Faithfully,_

_Nestor Royce, Lord of the Gates of the Moon and High Steward, writing on behalf of Lysa Arryn, Lady Regent of the Eyrie and ruler of the Vale."_

 

She turned the parchment over in her hands several times before screwing it up, enjoying the feel of the paper crumpling between her fingers, and threw it into the fire. She gave a grim smile as she watched it disappear amongst the flames, a small cloud of embers rising where it had landed. Arya rested the back of her head against the column she was leant on and found her eyes following the wisps of smoke as they drifted lazily up above her; twisting and spiralling. She sighed as they touched that plain vaulted ceiling and dispersed into nothingness, before realising that the ceiling was not plain at all, merely faded. Decades of fire smoke and neglect had dulled what she did not doubt were once vivid colours, even in that moment she could make out the misty images of entwined trees with fruitful branches, rising up under a night sky lit by a crescent moon. She could see the holdfast had once been beautifully ornate, decorated and furnished as nicely as any of the rooms in Winterfell, but like her home it filled her with sadness and longing. Worse still, the engraved leaved branches that wrapped around one another to make a canopy overhead reminded her of the throne room in King’s Landing. She cast her eyes back towards the great hearth and tried to think of something else.

 

Arya could see her clothes had been laid out near the fire carefully to dry along with Needle, which had been propped against the stone wall. She slowly pulled herself to her feet, wincing slightly as she flexed her muscles, and walked towards the hearth, the rough tapestry sliding off her and collecting in a pile by her feet. She felt oddly freed without the weight of it against her and embraced the feeling of the fire’s warmth on her bare skin. As she crossed the stone floor to get to her clothes shadows grew around the edge of her vision and forced her to stand still or risk losing her balance, _seven hells,_ she cursed at her weakness, allowing herself a grim smile at the thought of what Syrio might say. She closed her eyes, somehow she always found balancing easier with her eyes closed, and muttered to herself “very dead,” in her best attempt at his Braavosi accent. All that time spent chasing cats and standing on one foot suddenly felt wasted on her, when it took all the strength she had just to not topple over.

 

An enormous cracking noise nearby broke her away from her memories and, with a grace that surprised her given her injured state, she dived for Needle, successfully snatching the handle and unsheathing the weapon in one swift motion. As she wheeled around, pointing the blade to the direction of the sound, she barely noticed she’d scraped her knuckles against the wall when reaching for her sword; warm crimson dripped from her hand. She spread her trembling feet apart into the stance she was so accustomed to, despite the aching of her muscles she felt comfortable in its familiarity, though she doubted she could hold the position for that long. She was shaking just at the effort of keeping the fighter’s stance, she knew she wouldn’t be able to win a fight. Even with the warmth of the fire on her back, she felt a cold chill rise through her at her obvious vulnerability; she was hurt, naked and in danger of falling over before any swordplay took place, it wouldn’t take much more than a summer’s breeze to overpower her.

 

The noise came from a narrow archway set back from the right hand wall of the chamber that Arya hadn’t even noticed until then. _You are not seeing,_ the voice of Syrio taunted from her memories. She calmed her heart, breathing slowly and took in her surroundings like she had been taught; at the base of the archway there was a bundle of wood and, given that a few pieces of it were still moving, she didn’t doubt that it was the cause of the sound. A shadow moved beyond the arch. “I’m armed!” she shouted, wishing her voice were more forceful than it was. Pain rose within her, surging upwards from her feet to the very ends of her shaking fingers. _If this doesn’t end soon I won’t even be able to fucking stand,_ she cursed. Arya clenched her jaw and dropped to one knee to help her balance, pressing her right hand against the cold stone floor for support while keeping her left arm extended, Needle pointed to the arch.

 

The seconds passed agonising slowly, the reassuring warmth of the fire that had felt so enjoyable just moments ago now felt uncomfortable as beads of sweat ran down her. _I need to end this, now,_ she told herself; her anticipation coming to a head and threatening to boil over. “Who’s there?” She part asked, part commanded.

 

After a few moments she heard a great sigh from behind the arches, followed by the Hound’s gruff voice. “Calm yourself, wolf-girl, it’s only me.”

 

Her fear melted into relief and then anger as she lowered Needle and pulled herself up into a standing position, leaning against the wall for support, “you are the worst shit in the seven kingdoms!” She half-heartedly yelled at him, happy to have dropped out of the somewhat exhausting water dancing stance. “What in seven hells are you thinking, hiding in the shadows like that?! You scared me half to death!” She was surprised she admitted that to him.

The Hound said nothing; hanging behind the archway out of her sight while Arya rested Needle against the wall, noticing that the sword was still covered with the dark, dried blood of the Tribesman she’d stabbed. She barely heard the footsteps of the Hound as he walked away down the small winding corridor the arch led to, his metal boots scraping the stone floor, quieter with each pace. She was too busy gritting her teeth and looked to her bleeding knuckles; watching the newly forming scab tear open as she flexed her hand and then clenched it into a fist. Once she felt comfortable standing without support again she reached down to her pile of warm clothes and quickly sifted through them to find the cloth she usually bound her breasts with and used it to wrap around her cut knuckles. She had to sit down to put on her shift and breeches; it was still too uncomfortable balancing on one leg. When Arya threw her tunic on she noted that without the bindings to keep her chest flat her bust pushed at the seams of the boy’s clothes she’d worn for the last couple of years. She cursed the swell of her breasts; they were awkward and got in the way. They made shooting arrows harder too, she thought, remembering the last time she had held a bow with the Brotherhood – and they’d grown larger since then. It wasn’t just the jerkin that felt stretched either; she couldn’t pinpoint when but at some point her hips must have got wider as well for her breeches felt tighter around her waist. With her once short hair now resting only a few inches above her shoulders she realised her days of being able to disguise herself as a boy were swiftly coming to an end. Nonetheless, the soft worn leathers she’d spent the last few years in made a pleasant change against her bruised skin from the rough tapestry she’d used as mattress and sheet the night afore.

 

After buckling her belt and strapping the still blood encrusted Needle to her hip, telling herself she’d clean it properly later, she sighed and leant her head against the wall; looking back up at the floral ceiling as she did so. The gentle greens were dusted grey by decades of firesmoke and negligence; the careful nuances of the work lost to the ages, the sight made her feel a little empty inside. She took in a deep breath and then walked towards the archway, interested to explore whatever it was the Hound had found down there. Her steps were small and uncertain at first, halting every few paces to check her balance, but with each tread she gained confidence and soon found herself walking over the wood the Hound had dropped on the floor. _What in seven hells is wrong with him?_ She thought to herself, still jaded from his rejection last night. _What in seven hells is wrong with me?_ As if to answer her the high, childish laughs of Sansa and Jeyne Poole rang in her ears, mocking and chanting, _Arya Horseface, Arya Horseface, Arya Horseface._ She cursed them both under her breath, though immediately felt guilty as she remembered Sansa still stuck in King’s Landing.

 

Arya couldn’t understand why she was so hurt; she felt stupid, like the insecure child she had been in Winterfell again, always in the shadow of her more beautiful sister. Growing up, Arya had told herself she didn’t care; that she didn’t want to be a Lady, she had told herself so many times that she no longer questioned it. In fairness, it was at least in large part true; she hated the Southron styles and felt more at home in breeches than she ever would in a dress. She had no intention of ever becoming someone’s Lady and baring them children. She would not marry, she would be free; her whole childhood she’d been told her Stark name dictated she’d be wed to some green Lordling boy to secure an alliance. _That is not my future,_ she thought to herself with a slight smile... And yet there was this feeling in her stomach – a knot that bound tighter and tighter that she couldn’t untie. She didn't remember but she'd felt it before, what seemed like years ago, when Gendry doted over that black headed girl at the Peach; so much had passed since then.

 

She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind, hoping they’d stay there, and explained the tension in her stomach away as hunger; she did, in truth, feel starved. _Mayhaps the Hound has found some food, there must be a pantry somewhere,_ she hoped as she walked through the archway and up the corridor that followed, climbing a small flight of stairs on the way. The corridor was wide enough for two men to walk abreast but not so wide that she couldn’t touch both walls with her hands. It snaked and twisted upwards; making it very hard to work out exactly what direction it was leading. More than once she stumbled, almost falling; the ground was wet from the storm and although the rounded stones that made up the floor had no doubt once been smoothed now they were disjointed and uneven, the mortar between them cracked. The small gutters that ran either side of the pathway to drain rainwater were blocked with dislodged stones; the entire passageway was in disrepair. Above her head, cold grey light came in from great circle holes still dripping from the storm of the day afore, surrounded by hanging mosses and lichens. A bitter wind cut through her as she continued upwards, she thought back to the warm antechamber wistfully.

 

 _How much bloody higher is there?_ She wondered as the sloping floor steepened, then broke out into steps and the walls curved in on themselves yet again. Her muscles had begun to burn again and her lungs ached from the cold air. Beads of sweat dripped down her forehead and stung in her eyes. After slipping once more and grazing her forearm on a particularly sharp stone, Arya was on the verge of yelling out to the Hound, but stopped when she heard large crashing noises from further up. There was no way of knowing just how far it was to where the loud echoes came from but she continued anyway, pushing past her pain and running a hand against the wall for support. As the corridor broke into a spiral staircase she could feel her head clouding and paused for just a moment to catch her breath, listening to the racket above her. When she started again she was pleasantly surprised to find the top of the staircase only two more turns away before it broke into a large open room guarded by an open great oak door.

 

She could tell just from the sight that it was the Lord’s chamber; unlike everywhere else in the Holdfast it had, in large part, been kept from disrepair. In the centre, a great four posted bed towered high; its posts carved to look like twisting vines that reached and stretched up towards the high vaulted ceiling. The paintwork was less faded and the room was framed in a mixture of vibrant greens and dark browns. An unlit hearth, smaller by half than the one in the chamber below, was built against the left hand wall, the chimney also decorated with floral patterns. Two great windows in black iron frames with thick wooden shutters let the grey daylight into the room from the far wall and the right hand side; they unfortunately let in a cold breeze that tore through her, sending shivers down her spine. The rest of the chamber was covered in numerous bookcases, shelves and tapestries. She staggered towards the room, leaning against the huge door frame when she caught sight of the Hound, coming from a small cupboard that branched off of the wound, presumably to the Lord’s privy.

 

Inside the he had his back turned away from her; he acted like a man possessed. The Hound was tearing through cupboards and overturning empty trunks and cases, scouring the ground for anything of value. Loose brackets hung from the walls where he had torn down shelves and broken them into firewood. Books and papers were thrown into a pile in the corner of the room with a number of tattered rags. In a single, swift movement he ripped down one of the tapestries from the wall; it told the story of two doomed lovers that met by night in a glen of a great Weirwood trees, but by day were forced to pretend they didn’t know one another. _Sansa would probably know the story,_ Arya thought, remembering the great tapestries that hung in Winterfell. The Hound screwed up the tapestry in his arms and spun to see Arya, standing small and pale at the top of the archway. He paused for a moment, in surprise, before shooting her a dark look.

 

“The fuck you doing here?” He growled at her; a mixture of concern and contempt on his lips. He threw the old tapestry into the corner with an alarming amount of force; enough to make small plumes of dust rise where it landed. Arya didn’t understand why he was so furious.

 

“Find anything?” Arya asked, hoping he might have come across a reserve of food, she sounded more desperate than she had meant to.

 

The Hound shook his head roughly before turning away from her and walking towards a great wooden bed in the centre of the room, ripping off the sheets and running his knife along the seams of the stitched bedding to sift through the hay inside. “Nothing,” he grunted, throwing hay onto the floor before flipping the bedding over, “Not a fucking thing of use, no food, no water; and no fucking wine.”

 

“Nothing?” Arya repeated, disheartened, before walking into the room, past the Hound and looking out the great window at its far end. In front of her she could see the land of the Vale rolling out for leagues ahead, an endless patchwork of rocky fields and bogs and streams. It looked every bit as barren and empty as the Holdfast they were in. In the darkness of the night afore she hadn’t noticed that the Holdfast was built against a great cliff face, the long corridor to the Lord’s topmost room rose up its sheered sides, twisting and turning with the rocks. From this vantage point you could see attackers from miles away and in the distance she could just about make out the mountain that held the Eyrie, though she couldn’t actually see the fortress itself.

 

“Aye, nothing!” The Hound barked at her as she continued to look at the Vale, “Whoever hit this place hit it good, there’s nothing here but books and fucking tapestries!” He yelled, kicking the crumpled tapestry he’d thrown on the floor. Arya had never seen him like this before, she didn’t want to admit it but the man’s instability unnerved her, even scared her a little. She found her hand instinctively resting on the pommel of Needle.

 

“What in seven hells is the matter with you?” She asked bitterly, her voice cutting through the room and stopping him in his tracks. She turned, taking a few steps forward and squaring up against him. Her own power surprised her, but it didn’t daunt him and he leant towards her, towering over her small frame, scowling and yelling through gritted teeth.

 

“Just shut up, shut up! Always talking… a child, you’re fucking child!” He roared, before he stormed past her, gripping her shoulder savagely and turning her so she faced the window again. He pointed out the Eyrie in the distance, his metal shoulder armour roughly clipping the back of her ear as he did, “See that speck in the distance, that’s where we’re headed – and there’s nought of worth between here and there, no villages, no holdfasts, and scarcely any farms. We have no food, no water and unless we find some won’t have horses for long either, there could be tribesmen hiding round every rock for leagues and you’re in no fucking state to walk let alone fight.” He let go of her shoulder and slammed his fist against the wall, before pacing into the centre of the room, leaning against one of the bedposts. “Out there or in here, we haven’t got a fucking chance; I should leave you here, I’d probably make it.”

 

“Why don’t you then?” Arya snapped; face flushed with an anger that numbed her aches and pains. Unfortunately, that same anger made her irrational; she knew she would need his help to survive but it didn’t matter, she still screamed at him, “Why don’t you just fucking leave if you want to so badly!”

 

When he turned around his face was unreadable, a contorted mixture of pain and hate and, something else. He closed the gap between them and gripped her right arm tightly, when he spoke it was soft and in a guttural whisper that shook Arya to her core, “What would you know about what I want?” He pushed himself closer to her, so their bodies were practically touching. A flicker of heat ran through Arya, whether from fear or, something else, she wasn’t sure but she panicked and struck out at him with her free arm, her split knuckles landing against his chest armour. He stepped backwards, surprised, brow furrowed and teeth clenched, he had not let go of her arm. As she aimed another punch his way he easily blocked it, bringing his heel down against her ankle and knocking her to the floor in one swift motion. She cursed, pulling herself to her feet, and through all her weight against him.

 

The Hound sidestepped her lunge, pushing her against the side of the bed. With the Hound having gutted the bedding of its stuffing earlier her tailbone hit one of the hard wooden ruts that supported it and sent a bolt of pain up her back. She had to fight the urge to curl up into a ball out of instinct, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands to cope with the pain, but whatever pain she felt added fire to her fury and before she knew it she had unsheathed Needle and directed it towards the Hound. He caught her wrist in a vicelike grip, pointing the blade away from him and pulling her close. “Let go of me,” She screamed, baring her teeth at him in a snarl, “don’t touch me!”

 

His face broke into a menacing grin as he brought his free hand between her legs, pressing her back towards the bed and growling out “I thought you wanted my touch.” She let out a slight whimper as he pressed his hand harder against her sex and for a brief moment relaxed her hold on Needle, before she regained her composure and tried to wrest herself free from him.

 

“Fuck you!” She yelled at him, “You are the worst–” she began but was cut off when the Hound drove his hand up between her legs so forcefully it lifted her off her feet, pushing her backwards onto what was left of the bedding. This time when she landed she fell against some of the hay the Hound hadn’t pulled out and it hurt less than half as much. Despite her anger she could feel her body begin to betray her; heat spread from between her legs where the Hound’s hand was firmly clamped and her eyes grew heavy with lust. In a last bid to pull herself away from him she half-heartedly tried to sit up, only to be pushed back down. Needle dropped to the floor and rolled into the corner, forgotten.

 

“Aye, I’m the worst shit in the seven kingdoms,” The Hound finished for her, “you already said that,” listening as she let out a soft moan when he adjusted his hand, rubbing her cunt through her breeches. Excitement burned through her like wildfire as she melted against his touch, giving up her attempts to struggle and bringing her own hands down to the top of her belt to unbuckled it. He didn’t need any more convincing and slipped his hand underneath her breeches and shift, pushing his fingers deep into her warm folds. She gasped as he pressed his thumb against that hooded bundle of nerves, her hips rising automatically to try and draw him deeper. Her anger and pain and pleasure all fused together into intense lust. All that mattered to her was feeling more of that indescribable sensation.

 

In a bid to get more of his hand into her she pulled herself into a sitting position, her hands gripping the shoulder plates of his armour for support. She screwed her eyes tight and let out a number of pleasurable sighs as the Hound’s fingers repositioned inside her and, taking her cue, he slipped his free arm behind her back and lifted her upwards, her arse hovering just above the bedding, so that nearly her entire weight was balanced against his inserted fingers. They sank deep into her, so deep she thought she would split open. She felt herself screaming but no sound came out, her hips jolted repeatedly as she tried to hold onto his hand and also get away from it. Her breath caught in her lungs as her cunt struggled to accommodate him and it felt as if something was about to burst inside her. She winced and grunted as ripples of enjoyment rolled through her, each subsumed by the next stronger like waves on the shore. The Hound’s fingers slipped deeper than ever into her, stretching her wider and igniting her desire, his thumb rubbed her clitoris furiously. Arya felt her body tense as she let go of the Hound’s armour and dropped onto the bed, his arm behind her back stopped her from hitting her head against the wood. Instinctively her now free hands gripped what was left of the bedding, she curled her toes into balls and gritted her teeth together. She screwed her eyes shut and shook as she teetered on the brink of orgasm.

 

As she came, she came hard, practically screaming from the pleasure. Her hips bucked against him again and again as the great tension in her stomach was released, she felt water gush from between her legs over the Hound’s hand; her cunt twitched as it clamped his fingers inside her, stopping him from withdrawing them. The darkness seemed to dance and swirl around her as she tried to breath but couldn’t; her lungs frozen in the bliss and great exertion of her climax. As she sank back down from her high a series of jolts and trembles rocked her limbs. Her heart pounded loudly, her ears rang, a layer of sweat coated her body. There was a dull ache from deep inside her sex and yet a yearning for more. She blushed a deep crimson colour when she finally, blearily opened her eyes. There was a large dark, wet patch on the front of her breeches, the warmth ran over her legs and nestled between the cheeks of her arse. She felt embarrassed and childlike, remembering how the Septa would react, exasperated, when she had to change the sheets but there was no look of anger or disgust in the Hound’s eyes; they were heavy lidded with lust and wonder. When he removed his hand from inside her she felt an immediate pang of emptiness and longing.

 

It was only as exhaustion began to claim her, both from her climax and the climb up to the chamber; that she remembered how angry she was with the Hound, how angry she was with herself for once again collapsing under his touch. _I wanted that,_ she realised, feeling somewhat guilty at herself for giving up against him so easily, _more than he did._ As she began to drift off on to sleep she felt the warmth and afterglow of her orgasm begin to fade and be replaced by that cold draft. As a shiver rolled over her spine the Hound through one of the discarded sheets over her and grim smile rolled across her lips, _it turns out there was something of use up here,_ she thought enjoying the, albeit partly destroyed, bed she was lying on. She heard the locks and bolts of the door to the chamber and the windows being sealed and it wasn’t long before the Hound had managed to construct a roaring fire; it seemed the tapestries, books and shelves were also not entirely without use.

 

After a brief visit to the Lord’s privy, the Hound lie down on the bed next to Arya, still in armour. As sleep rolled over the two of them a slightly chilling thought ran across Arya’s mind… _what exactly does he want…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies for the very long delay between this chapter and the last, I do hope you enjoyed this (longer) chapter in compensation. It has been incredibly difficult to write this one and went through numerous reedits before I came to something even vaguely tolerable but still, I hope this lived up to expectations. I cannot believe how wonderful the comments have been on here and that we crossed over 100 kudos and 6000 views. Thank you all for reading and liking, the comments really helped me write this one - there were more than a few moments where I think, without all the positive support, I might have stopped writing. Once again, thank you all and let me know what you think :)


	13. Prey

The cold air bit savagely at his scarred face, gripping into the twisted flesh with its icy fingers. They had ridden their horses hard and fast for the better part of the day in a desperate attempt to cross as much ground as possible while they were still strong enough to do so. They had long since passed exhaustion and both Arya and the Hound were aware that the longer it took them to find somewhere with food, the less likely their chances of survival were. Although he saw signs of recovery in her Sandor knew she wouldn’t be able to hold her own in a fight, and if he went much longer without something warm to eat he doubted he would either – a powerful fatigue had wrapped itself around him, burrowing under his skin and sinking deep into his muscles and bones. He was seldom used to feeling weak, the thought unnerved him; not only that he couldn’t likely protect himself properly, but also that he wouldn’t be able to protect _her._ He wouldn’t admit it but he found surprising comfort being near her, more so than any other person he’d travelled with, even if she hated him... maybe _because_ she hated him.

 

He had watched and done unspeakable things in his life, things no person should see or do, he no longer remembered how many he had killed, nor did he believe he wouldn’t kill again. And yet Arya didn’t judge him simply because he was a murderer, after all, he’d watched her kill a handful of men herself, and she didn’t _always_ hate him either. He wondered if he hadn’t run down her butcher friend for Joffrey, _spoilt Lannister cunt,_ whether they might have been friends. _Probably not,_ he thought to himself as he flicked a few stray hairs from his eyes, _but then she doesn’t_ always _hate me…_ Certainly she had softened towards him recently, both since she was incapable of protecting herself and since he had placed his hands between her thighs and given her what she so craved and feared. Younger girls than her would have been wedded to rich Southern Lords already and Sandor knew better than most how hot blood runs after a battle, it was little wonder she was so confused. Sandor didn’t doubt she was more mature and smarter than half the men he knew and yet in this regard she was still just a child, so nervous and unsure.

 

They had left the holdfast before the sun had reached its midday mark, filling their flasks with some of the water from the storm that trickled from the high tower. To his surprise Arya stifled any complaints when they were forced to saddle their horses on empty stomachs, in fact she didn’t say anything at all. She bore a look of carnal satisfaction and a slight disgust that tore at Sandor; she looked at him with the expression you might expect to find on a petulant child. They hadn’t said anything since they both awoke, him first, her second. He had already set about checking the Holdfast one last time for anything of use by the time she came down the staircase, trembling in her weakness and at the cold. A deep knot formed in his stomach at the thought of actually passing her over to her Aunt – they needed to get to the Bloody Gate or else they would likely be killed, but getting there would mean saying goodbye. He didn’t understand the effect the two Stark girls had had on him, he was completely fine on his own before he’d met them – better still he _liked_ being on his own. Somehow something had changed, and it made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

 

Once they left the ensuing ride was as swift as possible without killing their mounts. Their silence continued for league on league and for the first time in what felt like weeks they made good progress, many of the paths were in surprisingly good repair. As the sun reached its highest, even though it was hidden in cloud cover, they spotted smoke in the distance. From so far out it was hard to tell if it was from a farm, a camp or a forest fire but whatever it was lay directly in their path. Their only chance of getting to the Eyrie without finding any more supplies rested on them taking as direct a route as possible, they couldn’t risk going around the source of the smoke – not without food and with Arya weakening by the hour. Her physical injuries had begun healing rather well but the limited rest and food was clearly draining what little strength she had left after the bandit attack. As they crested another small hill and headed down into a valley, still heading towards the smoke, he broke the silence.

 

“Could be food.” He said calmly, weighing up the risk of pushing forward blindly against the dangers of a long detour. He didn’t think the horses would be up to making a quick escape but then again he didn’t think they’d manage much longer going around. They needed supplies; the horses, him and Arya.

 

“Could be soldiers.” She replied, her voice was soft but surprisingly powerful. Evidently she also was judging the odds of whether to proceed or go around the source of the smoke.

 

The Hound grimaced; it could be any number of things. It could be a trap, it could be nothing. If it had been attacked there wouldn’t be anything left and worse still there may still be soldiers or tribesmen nearby. And if it was just a house, then it was obviously occupied – the chances that whoever owned it would willingly part with food was slim and he’d rather not fight them for it. Although there were any number of reasons why getting into a fight would be reckless and ill advised – not the least of which being that he, tired and hungry, was unusually weak and Arya couldn’t defend herself either – the real reason he wanted not to fight surprised him. After the way she had reacted to him taking the farmer’s silver, he didn’t want her to see him do something similar to whoever owned this house. He didn’t want to be that man around her. _Seven hells,_ he cursed to himself, _when did you start giving a fuck what the Stark girl thinks of you? She can’t hate you any more than she does._

 

Without any more words they pushed forwards. The chance of finding supplies was more valuable to them than to err on the side of caution – if they were going to get through the journey, they needed to take the risk. The source of smoke was still a way off, coming somewhere within a small patch of woodlands, but even at that distance he could just about make out the bare outlines of some kind of structure – wooden beams of the roofing stood exposed. Wordlessly he dismounted his horse, drawing his sword, cursing a little at his hunger and how much heavier it made the blade feel. When he was content there was no immediate danger he turned around to Arya, still on her white mare, and offered her a hand down. As stubborn as she was even she knew she was still hurt and weak enough to need his help, even if she wouldn’t say it allowed. She pressed her hands on his shoulders and slid off the saddle of the horse, her feet slipping in the mud when they hit the ground and bringing her to her knees in front of him. Instinctively the Hound dropped his sword and grabbed her under her arms, lifting her back up and holding her still for a moment while she regained her balance.

 

“You good?” He asked her, unsure whether to loosen his grip or not. She looked up at him for a moment disoriented by the drop and hunger, before nodding. Even with the bruises beginning to fade, the sight of her face still made the Hound’s jaw clench involuntarily, both for not being there at the attack, and for delivering one of the blows himself. She reluctantly took a few steps forward after he let go of her, before he stopped down to retrieve his sword.

 

With her balance restored she drew her _sword_ from her belt. _More like a toothpick,_ he thought to himself not for the first time, _not unlike hersel–_ But it wasn’t true. It hadn’t been true for some time. Arya Stark was no longer the thin slip of a girl she had been the first time he’d set eyes on her at Winterfell, she was fuller now – closer to a woman than a child. This was hardly the first time he’d noticed her blossoming form but in that moment, watching as she strode forward towards the smoke, it was hard to imagine that the woman in front of him had ever been that scrawny little child he’d met so long ago, so far to the North. His thoughts turned to her sister, Sansa, only a couple of years Arya’s elder she too had flourished into womanhood afore his eyes. He found himself wishing he’d convinced her to come with him in King’s Landing – she _almost_ did – Arya had the look of someone who’d been alone for too long. He knew that as independent as she tried to be – as she believed she was – what she really needed was family. _Then again,_ Sandor thought, his lips twitching upwards as he remembered the elder Stark sister, _Sansa wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun to travel with._ His smile grew into a grin at the thought of Lady Sansa struggling in the mud – complaining about her dresses being ruined or somesuch nonsense.

 

His eyes fixed themselves on Arya, on the way the stitching of her clothes was stretched around her hips and bust, on her messy, cropped brown hair. From the depths of his mind he recalled the drunken, lecherous voice of King Robert Baratheon describing Lyanna Stark. Though filthy and bruised and clad in over worn leathers, Arya was more beautiful to the Hound than her Aunt had ever been, but her Aunt had cost the Seven Kingdoms its King and thousands of lives, his stomach pitted slightly as he wondered what price it would pay for Arya. Her list was quite long enough already, he thought grimly, remembering his own name at the bottom of it.

 

“Are you going to stand there all day?” Arya hissed towards him, brow furrowed and arms thrown out sideways in an exaggerated motion.

 

“Stop your whining wolf-girl, I’m coming.” He shot back with a hint of mockery in his tone, closing the distance between them in just a handful of strides. Her face wrinkled at being called a girl though she didn’t say anything back, much to his surprise. He immediately stepped in front of her as they headed towards the burnt out structure, just in case anyone was still there.

 

About a stone’s throw from the still smouldering husk of a farmhouse and stables the Hound heard the unmistakeably low wheezing and grunting of a dying man. The recognisable stench of the last embers of what had presumably been a great fire a few hours ago filled Sandor’s nostrils and stung at his eyes. Not a day had passed since his maiming that he hadn’t encountered a fire – for light, warmth, cooking, or as a weapon – and yet he still had to push back memories of the wooden knight and his brother. Striding into the clearing he caught sight of an old man with wispy grey hair, hunched against the remains of a well with his hands closed on what the Hound assumed was a wound to his stomach. His thoughts were confirmed as he got closer, noticing that the blood around the wound had crusted slightly, drying in the rough fabric of the man’s clothes – he had been like this for some time. Hearing them coming he looked up, eyes sharp and keen – despite the apparent severity of his condition the wounded man seemed surprisingly lucid.

 

“You shouldn’t be sitting out here like this.” Arya said from over the Hound’s shoulder, stepping forward to get closer to the man. They had both sheathed their swords – the old man couldn’t stand, he certainly wasn’t a threat and whoever had burnt the hut down would have left some time ago judging from the now mainly burnt out fire.

 

The man spoke in a low, growling voice but with an impressive amount of strength. “Where else to sit? Tried to walk back to my hut, hurt too much…” He could hardly keep his head up, “and I remembered they burnt m’hut down.”

 

“Who were they?” The Hound asked, _and are we still in danger?_

“I stopped asking a while ago.” The man said back; for someone dying he seemed oddly calm and collected.

 

The Hound dropped to one knee, crouching in front of the dying man and took a better look at his wound. Even from a brief glance he could see it was deep – underneath the skin exposed gut and bowels had been cut and mangled. He had killed enough men and watched enough men get treated after battles to know that the wound was fatal; it would consume him slowly in days if not hours. “That’s not going to get better.” He said, hoping the man would understand what he was saying. _I can end it quickly._

“Doesn’t seem so.” The dying man replied in a similar manner to as if the Hound had commented that it wouldn’t rain that afternoon. Sandor felt real and genuine pity for the man.

 

“Bad way to go, haven’t you had enough?” His offer was clear.

 

“Of what?” He groaned, eyes flitting up to meet Sandor’s. They burnt so brightly and fiercely the Hound half expected the man would pull himself up and walk away, but he didn’t, his head slumped again as he struggled through the pain of his body slowly breaking down. “I know, time to go – take matters into my own hands. The thought has occurred to me.” He said, the pained rumble of his voice adding extra weight to each word.

 

“So why go on?” Arya asked, kneeling by the dying man’s side.

 

“Habit.” The man said, Sandor might have laughed in other circumstances.

 

Arya paused for a moment, her grey eyes seemingly searching the face of the dying man for something, after a while she stated simply, “Nothing could be worse than this.”

 

“Maybe nothing is worse than this.” The man said, his weak frame shaking with exertion. Sandor was once again impressed the man was so collected given his position, he had seen men with lesser wounds give into greater madness.

 

“Nothing isn’t better or worse than anything. Nothing is just nothing.” Arya said coldly. Her voice was light and soft but also hollow and lifeless, her eyes stared forwards cold and unfeeling. It unnerved Sandor more than he’d care to admit; few things scared him save fire, but the bitter remorseless pessimism that flowed from the younger Stark sister caught him off guard and he felt his stomach tighten uncomfortably. The dying man must have thought the same as he, with great difficulty, lifted his head up and stared her in the eyes.

 

“Who are you?” He asked, curious and incredulous of her in equal measure.

 

“My name’s Arya,” she answered honestly, making the Hound nervous. “Arya Stark.”

 

If the dying man had heard of her he showed no signs of it, Sandor reasoned that so far south of the North the normal people probably didn’t care about the lives or children of the highborns in faraway places. His suspicions were confirmed when the dying man turned to him and asked, “You her father?”

 

Sandor looked at him; the man didn’t have long, he answered truthfully. It was an odd feeling, freeing almost. It had been so long since the Hound had met someone who didn’t turn away from his burnt face and recoil in disgust  – he felt sorry for the poor man, caught out here as he was. “Her captor, bringing her to her Aunt for ransom.”

 

The old man didn’t judge him, instead he cocked his head to the side slightly as if weighing something up in his mind and croaked out, “A fair exchange that is. Always held to the notion of fair exchange in all my dealings. You give me, I give you. Fair… A balance…” He let out a deep sigh and attempted to adjust himself, before continuing miserably, “No balance anymore.” He paused for a moment, lost in thought, before turning back to Sandor with a renewed vigour and asking, “Can I have a drink, dying is thirsty work?”

 

The man surprised the Hound again with this request; in his experience of battlefield injuries most wounded men insist beyond all rationale that they’re going to survive, the dying man seeming as calm as he was in the face of death rattled him. The gods knew they had precious little water, probably not enough even for themselves, but these would likely be this man’s last wishes so against his better judgement, the Hound obliged. _Since when did I get so fucking soft?_ The Hound thought, knowing the answer already. The man took a deep swig, swilling the water around his dry mouth and cracked lips, before swallowing it. For the briefest of moments he looked almost content, but his face contorted into a pained expression.

 

“Wish it were wine.” The man joked, his voice weak; his agony and anguish evident. It would be a long, protracted and painful death without intervention – they both knew that. The Hound unsheathed his knife.

 

“So do I.” The Hound replied, looking at the man with genuine pity, meeting his gaze with his eyes before plunging his blade into his heart, the point slipped between two ribs and found its target. The man seized up, shook slightly and then turned to look at Sandor, he nodded slightly – understandingly – before he rasped out his last feeble breath and hunched forward.

 

“That’s where the heart is. That’s how you kill a man.” The Hound said, voice low as he looked at the crumpled heap in front of him. Arya dipped her head in recognition as Sandor wiped the blood from his knife and slipped it back into his sheath. “Important to clean away the blood – your blade’ll get stuck if it dries, makes you slower on the draw.”

 

As he stood up he heard the sound of twigs crack behind him and his fingers instinctively flew to his sword, too late. He felt a sharp pain across his shoulder and immediately assumed the worst – working out how deep whatever weapon was used had pierced him. Only, it wasn’t a weapon – it was teeth. Someone had bit him. _Who the fuck bites someone?_ He thought as his hands left the pommel of his sword and gripped onto the head of the man who had sunk his teeth into him. The Hound had seen people use their teeth in desperate last resort fights, he had done it himself on occasion, but to use them instead of a sword – if the attacker had struck him with any other weapon Sandor Clegane would be dead, instead he could grip the head of his would be killer, easily twisting it with a savage yank and relishing in the loud crack that indicated the man was dead. He reeled round to check for other attackers, gripping his bleeding shoulder, and saw a rather fat man wielding a sword rushing towards them. The man, seeing what had happened to his comrade, lowered the sword.

 

“The fuck you doing?” The Hound roared, trying to stem the flow of blood from his wound.

 

“There’s a price on your head.” The man growled back, he had long unkempt hair and a wiry beard.

 

“I guess that’s what the King does when you tell him to fuck off.” The Hound spat out between clenched teeth – more for Arya’s benefit than anyone else’s.

 

“The King’s dead, he drank poisoned wine at his own wedding. The bounty on you is for killing Lannister soldiers, a hundred silver stags.” The man said, to Sandor’s dismay. He barely had time to register that Joffrey was dead before the true severity of their situation hit him. _One hundred silver stags, fuck the gods,_ he thought, realising that a bounty half that would be enough to turn even the most respectable men into murderers.

 

“And you thought you were going to collect it? Didn’t think very hard did you?” The Hound jeered at the portly man, who was evidently working out if he could get the better of the wounded Hound in an attack. Sandor was relieved that the man was paying no attention to Arya, though Sandor had little doubt that he would if he wasn’t there – and her boy’s disguise wouldn’t fool anyone anymore, even with the weight loss from their travels. He turned in surprise when Arya spoke up, stepping towards the stout, dirty man in front of them.

 

“You were Yoren’s prisoners when he was taking me to the Wall.” She said, and a look of confusion played across the man’s features. “He told me he’d fuck me bloody with a stick.”  The confusion was replaced by a flicker of recognition and surprise followed by contempt, his eyes bore deep against her, remembering her tormenting him when he was locked in the cage. His grip on his sword tightened but he didn’t attack.

 

“This day’s really not working out the way you planned.” The Hound said mockingly, before turning to Arya, “He on your little list?” He hadn’t meant it to sound quite so teasing.

 

She shifted uncomfortably on one foot and answered much to Sandor’s suprise, “He can’t be… I don’t know his name.”

 

The Hound almost laughed, before turning to the fat man in front of them and asking simply, “What’s your name?”

 

“Rorge.” The man said still looking unsure of what to do. Of all the situations he’d prepared for in his head this had not been one of them.

 

“Thank you.” Arya said quietly before drawing her blade from her hip with an agility that surprised the Hound and thrusting it deep into Rorge’s chest. He remembered from his own bruised stomach the force she could put behind Needle and against an unarmoured man it slipped in and out of his leather and skin as though she were dipping a warmed knife through butter.

 

Within moments blood bubbled up from the small pinprick in his chest, from his heart, and he toppled forward, a twisted mix of shock and panic and pain on his face as he fell. She stooped over his body and wiped her skinny blade across his jerkin.

 

“You’re learning.” The Hound grunted, taking a seat on the ground as he tried to stop the wound from bleeding. They’d use up all the bandages on her injuries and to clear her moon blood away so he knew he’d have no choice but to stitch it – not that they could do that here. He nonetheless needed a moment to catch his breath “Check them for supplies.” He told Arya and she started scouring the bodies and nearby ground for anything of use – they found a satchel full of stale bread and water but precious little else, still it tasted incredible.

 

“We can’t stay here.” She said, showing a strength that impressed him as he chewed through the bread – his stomach roared triumphantly when he swallowed.

 

“No, we can’t.” He agreed, rising shakily to his feet and resting his eyes on the young woman in front of him.

 

She was impossible, incredible but the more death she saw the more unfeeling she became – her eyes had been cold when even his were not, a slight chill crept up the Hound’s spine as he remembered the way she watched him murder the dying man without even the slightest hint of remorse, the idle curiosity as he wiped the blade clean. He saw her sling the satchel of supplies over her shoulder and noticed her hand dropping to the pouch on her belt that held that Braavosi coin of hers. She had held it after she stabbed the Frey man to death, and after she killed the two men in the Inn at the Crossroads. The ritual unnerved him more than he would admit to; the youngest Stark was made of stronger metal Valyrian steel and was just as sharp and dangerous… _though decidedly worse tempered_ , he thought – almost grinning as he imagined how she’d react if he said that aloud. His mind shifted as his eyes traced the outline of her body, the way the leather clung tightly to her curves – the threading threatening to split at the joins. He closed his eyes, now was not the place to lose focus. She eyed him curiously, her grey gaze landing on the trickling wound on his shoulder. For just a moment he thought she looked at him like he was _prey_.

 

“Get the horses, _wolf.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it has been a very long time hasn't it? I did promise I hadn't forgotten - I do hope you all enjoyed the new chapter, no smut this time I'm afraid (we can't have smut in every chapter can we?) A massive thank you to all the support I've received in the writing of this - you guys are amazing and your comments always bring a smile to my face :) Thank you all so much - even if I haven't managed to reply to you.


	14. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the positive feedback; it was unfair to leave the story unfinished and I'm really sorry for not uploading for 2 years. I had planned a filler chapter but instead I wanted you all to enjoy the ending this fic has been building towards since around chapter 7. I really hope you enjoy it.

The Hound had always lived in the shadow of death; he knew in what was left of his scarred heart that someday something would kill him, and he’d probably deserve it. From the moment he’d been bitten he’d guessed his time was up and now he’d been killed by the greatest killer of all – not Brienne of Tarth or the fucker that bit him, but by infection. There wasn’t a greater killer in the Seven Kingdoms than that.  Being knocked off of a cliff had sealed the deal, but it was the infection that had slowed him, he winced at the knowledge he should have let the Stark girl burn the wound shut. _After all your talk Clegane, you’re a fucking coward._

 

He squeezed his eyes shut in a bid to stop himself retching – the Hound knew pain, it was as common to him as shitting or breathing and yet this was worse than he’d ever felt. His insides were broken and out of place: bones scraped against each other and waves of cold rippled through him. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears and warmth spread from the wound in his leg. Each battle could have been his last – a hundred times over and he’d never feared the end. He had no family, no riches nor friends; there wasn’t much to hang on to. He grunted and coughed at the metallic taste of the blood bubbling up within him.

 

His whole tormented existence was a punishment enough it hardly seemed worth fearing whatever the gods might have in store for him after, if the gods existed at all. He had no real reason for surviving beyond that of the wounded man’s they’d met on the road, no reason better than habit _…_ _and maybe killing Gregor_ he thought grimly, coughing up blood. He’d felt more purpose serving the Stark girls than he had in the rest of his life – more purpose fighting for Arya than he ever had serving in the Kingsguard. _You’ve gone soft,_ he would have laughed if it wasn’t so painful to move, _and it got you killed._

 

He heard movement nearby and turned, half expecting the blonde woman to spring out ready to finish the job. It wasn’t her though, it was Arya. Her expression was cold and she seemed oddly small against the rocky valley. She approached softly and crouched nearby, he felt her gaze rake over his wounds.

 

“You’re still here?” He grunted, his throat was rough, “the big bitch saved you.”

 

She met his eyes and replied flatly, “I don’t need saving.”

 

“No, not you. You’re a real killer.” He mocked, “With your water dancing and your needle.” He almost regretted saying it when he saw a flicker of hurt in her eyes but he’d saved her life a half dozen times and more since they’d set out together and somehow her lack of appreciation – her lack of any real emotion at his injuries made his insides twist.

 

“You’re gonna die?” Arya shot back at him, though her tone lacked spite.

 

He took a few shallow breaths before trying to lighten the mood between them, if only a little. “Unless there’s a Maester hiding behind that rock aye,” Her face twitched almost unnoticeably when he added with a juddered sight, “I’m done.”

 

She wore the same impassive expression she’d had when they met the dying man on the road, but he knew her better. The Stark girl was a far better liar than her sister but he could see real vulnerability in her eyes; they’d been through too much for her not to care. It gave him some level of comfort to know that with a performance that good she might actually make it – and the blonde woman would make a passable protector. His throat went dry, and not just from his wounds.

 

“I’d skin you alive for wine.” He groaned, adding quickly when she reached for the flask by her side, “Fuck water!” The old man had been right, dying was thirsty work – admittedly he’d throw up anything he tried to drink now, he’d seen it too many times on the battlefield.

 

 _Arya Stark_. He turned to look at her, to really look at her. She was far too thin and paler than she ought be after spending so much time outdoors, the bruises around her face had faded to almost nothing and she’d regained much of her strength the last few days. She was hardened, _sharp as her bloody needle_ ; he could almost have felt proud. He wondered if she was worth dying for, _I suppose it doesn’t matter now_. Somewhere at the back of his head he was reminded how she wanted this – she wanted his death, she’d promised it – practically prayed for it with her list of names.

 

“Killed by a woman,” He said out loud, no longer sure if he meant Brienne or herself, “I bet you liked that.” He paused to see how she’d react, but when she said nothing he spoke softer, “Go on, go after her. She’ll help you. Going out alone, you won’t last a day out there.”

 

“I’ll last longer than you.” She answered him numbly; there was no joy in her voice.

 

She was right; he knew that, they both did and there was little use pretending otherwise. The pain ran through and through him with no hope of easing, even if she could stop his wounds she’d never be able to keep them both alive, not on her own. He remembered well enough how hard it had been looking after her while she was injured, she didn’t stand a chance with his wounds.

 

 The day was drawing in and the longer she was out there the longer she was at risk – every minute she crouched there was a minute he was no longer protecting her. She’d help him he was sure – ever since she stitched his wound she’d been more open, given up trying to even pretend like she hated him. He’d hardly say the last weeks with her had been the best of his life, he could remember plenty better drinking and whoring in relative peace, but they counted – he didn’t know how they counted but somehow they did.

 

He sighed; it didn’t matter now, “You remember where the heart is?” Her eyes sharpened when he spoke, shining with disbelief, “Fuck it. I’m ready – Go on girl; another name off your list… You kept promising me.”

 

She didn’t move, her face was stone – he could have laughed, after everything she wasn’t going to do it. She was too still though, if she wanted to look like she didn’t care she was too tense – he guessed her heart was probably pounding as fast as his. He closed his eyes for a second to think; he didn’t have his blades, if he could end it himself he would. _It has to be her,_ he cursed at the unfairness of it, _it had to be her… and she won’t do it…_

 

“I cut down the butcher’s boy… the ginger,” he said coldly, trying to goad her into it – give her a chance to keep up their charade: the one where he was just her captor and she would do anything to kill him, “He was begging for mercy – please sir, please, please.” He expected to see anger, hatred… he didn’t expect to see _pity_. “He bled all over my horse, my saddle stunk of butcher’s boy for weeks. And your sister, your pretty sister, I should’ve taken her – that night the Blackwater burned, I should’ve fucked her bloody. At least I’d have one happy memory!” The air was thick between them before he added, lower, “I should’ve taken you too.”

 

Arya was quiet for a moment as she studied his face; it was like she could see right through him. When she spoke it was quiet and soft, “But you didn’t.”

 

He didn’t know why they were both still pretending. She had others true but they were scattered far away and right now, in this place, he was all she had – the closest she had to a friend, and she… _Arya Stark_ … she was as close as he’d been to family.

 

His voice trembled when he spoke, “Do I have to beg you?” She was silent, frozen. The pain was beyond baring, “Do it… _do it…”_

 

She stood up slowly and stepped towards him, crouching just out of reach. Her eyes dropped down to his exposed chest where his armour had buckled but instead of drawing her sword she simply leaned ever closer than before until her face was close enough that he could make out every shade of her eyes. He expected her to stop but she didn’t, his heartbeat was ringing in his ears as she gently breathed a kiss against his lips, _one happy memory._

 

She pressed her head against his, whispering softly into his scarred ear, “Live.”

 

There was more to say but neither spoke and all too soon she was gone; stepping away from him with their bag of silver. He screamed out after her, calling her back, begging her to finish him but she kept walking until she was just a grey speck in the distance indistinguishable from the rocks around her. He closed his eyes, embracing the relief the darkness gave him. It was enough. Maybe she would be alright. He’d done at least one thing right in his wretched life and with a final twisted smile he laughed, after all, _how many knights kissed both the Stark girls._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again a huge thank you to everybody who read this my first fanfic, I am largely recovered from the various health ordeals and managed to graduate university. I don't know how much time I've got to write over the next year or so but I'm focussing on closing off stories so people have real endings. I'm sorry it was short, I hope it was what you were hoping for. Thanks again.  
> PS: Seems like I, same as the show, forgot about Gendry ;) He's probably still rowing!


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